


And You Keep Me Holding On

by woakiees



Category: Oscar Isaac - Fandom, Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: Blood and Injury, F/M, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Kidnapping, Mental Health Issues, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26759794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woakiees/pseuds/woakiees
Summary: Santi can lose everything. He can lose everything, but he can't lose her.
Relationships: Santiago "Pope" Garcia/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**_OCTOBER 17TH - DAY ONE_ **

It’s just after nine o’clock when she finally makes it home from work, feet aching, a deep sigh escaping her lips as she lets herself fall back against the front door for just a moment, trying to get her shoulders to relax. Her eyes fall shut as she feels the exhaustion begin to seep into the cracks of her skin and settle deep within her bones, and she can’t tell if the tension that plagues her entire body is getting better or worse with each passing second. 

She can’t remember the last time she had felt so completely exhausted.

Normally, she doesn’t mind the twelve hour shifts at the hospital. She loves the patient interaction, the challenges. She’s proud of her job and what she accomplishes day in and day out as an E.R. nurse. But fuck, there are days where she gets home and everything just _hurts_ and she wonders if maybe she should just quit and become a stay at home wife. 

She could never, but she’s thought about it. 

It wasn’t even that long of a shift, and it certainly wasn’t a hard one by any means. There have been nights where she’s been forced to stay well past shift change, and she knows that there will be many more nights like that to come, but the exhaustion she feels now doesn’t even come close to what she’s experienced on those long nights. She’s just so tired, and she wants nothing more than to curl up on the sofa with her favorite blanket and the takeout she picked up from a sandwich shop down the street.

Actually, there’s one thing she wants more. She _really_ wants to be snuggled up with her husband rather than burrowing herself into a furry blanket in search of the same warmth that he provides, but he’s still at work, stuck behind a desk for God only knows how much longer. When she stopped by his office on her way home for the night, it seemed as if he had been nowhere near finished with the mountain of paperwork littering his desk. She knew immediately that it was going to be one of those nights where she would be lucky if he returned home before she fell asleep.

She’s gotten rather used to it, though — falling asleep without Santi. It’s not ideal, it never had been, and if she was being completely honest she probably would prefer staying with him over being home without him. She would do nothing but sit at the desk across from him until midnight if it meant she was able to just simply be in his presence, if she got to look over at him and see him just as bored and tired as her. And she _would’ve_ stayed had he not practically forced her to leave.

Another sigh escapes her lips. She just wants Santi. 

A warm shower will have to do instead. 

She pushes away from the door and saunters into the kitchen, throwing her takeout bag into the fridge. She’s not ready to eat just yet, really doesn’t want to eat alone though she knows she’ll cave after taking a shower. She can already feel her stomach growling.

She turns on a few lamps around the apartment before making her way to their shared bedroom, placing her stethoscope and her phone on the table next to her side of the bed. For a moment, she considers skipping both her shower and dinner in favor of crawling underneath her warm and cozy blankets, but she knows that she’ll be mad at herself in the morning for not rinsing off at the very least. She really needs to start taking her showers at the hospital, just so she still has the motivation to even take one at all.

She quickly sheds herself of her scrubs, throwing them into the hamper that sits in the corner of their closet before heading to the bathroom, the hardwood floor cold on her bare feet. She grabs a towel and washcloth, sets the shower to the perfect temperature, and then stepps in underneath the warm spray, some of that damned tension instantly leaving her body.

A content groan flies past her lips as the hot water runs down her skin, soothing her aching muscles wherever it touches. She leans her head back, closing her eyes and wetting her hair, letting the water trail down her face and chin, and she stands there, completely still for several minutes, relishing in the feeling of finally being able to relax, washing the day down the drain where it belonged. The only thing that could possibly make it better were if Santi-

She hears something move in the bedroom, and while the initial noise of a drawer being slid open makes her jump, the following jingle of keys instantly calms her down. 

Every night as soon as he gets home, Santiago throws his keys and his gun into his bedside table. It has to be him. 

And not only that, but she’s positive she locked the front door. She even checked each window she passed on her way to the bathroom, a habit Santi had instilled in her, and she knows that she would’ve heard someone breaking in even over the sound of running water.

“Babe?”

He doesn’t answer and she frowns, but she knows him well enough to know that his silence meant something went wrong at work — it’s not an uncommon occurrence for Santi to be in a mood for the first hour or so after arriving home.

“You’re home earlier than I thought you’d be.”

More silence.

“You wanna come shower with me and tell me what happened?”

Again, he doesn’t answer and she merely sighs to herself, turning to face the front of the shower, reaching to shut the water off when she feels a small breeze hit the back of her legs that makes her stop. She watches the shower curtain flutter a bit before sliding open, the metal rings noisy against the rod, and she peeks over her shoulder to look at her husband, beyond ready to pull him into her arms and kiss him, ready to feel his warms skin and itchy stubble against her.

She turns, and then she freezes again, unable to do anything but stare. 

It doesn't take her even a second to realize that it’s not Santi standing in front of her. 

Not even close.

She’s not staring into a pair of familiar brown eyes — eyes that never fail to make her feel so safe and loved, eyes that feel like home. She’s not even staring into the blue eyes that she knows belong to the man in front of her; a man who is no stranger, but is certainly no friend.

No, she’s staring down the metal barrel of a gun.

And she doesn’t allow herself even a moment for her brain to process and register.

The hours of training, everything Santi has ever taught her about survival and defense — his instructions, the instinct immediately kicks in as if she’s on autopilot, exactly like he told her it would. She’s not going to go down without a fight.

But she just isn’t quick enough, isn’t strong enough, and it’s not long before her head meets the mirror and her world fades to black.

* * *

There are police everywhere. Santi is sitting on the edge of their bed and he can’t stop shaking, can’t stop bouncing his leg to at least give the impression that he still has some control left over his body. Cameron, his old Lieutenant from his days as a detective, is saying something to him — words of comfort that do nothing to soothe his racing mind and his aching heart, and even if they did calm him down he can’t bring himself to listen, doesn’t even pretend to. He knows that she can tell, but there’s no way that she can act even remotely annoyed. Not then.

Santi feels so, so lost. All he can think about is the pool of blood in the middle of their bathroom, what he knows has to be her blood, and the fact that she’s not curled up in their bed like she should be. She wasn’t there to give him a kiss hello the second he walked through the door, she’s not there for him to hold, to love on, to lose himself in. She isn’t there and Santi had never felt so completely helpless, so confused and frazzled and _worried_. 

Never. Never in a million years did he imagine walking into such a grizzly, vicious crime scene within his own home. The blood, the shards of glass from the broken bathroom mirror. The shower curtain torn from the hooks and shampoo bottles scattered across the floor. The once steaming water still running, now ice cold and only serving as another unwanted reminder that he had been too late.

She had put up one hell of a fight, that much was clear, and Santi feels disgusted at the pride that swells in his chest. Utterly disgusted because for just a moment, the pride outweighs his worry.

That’s his girl.

Tears begin to form behind his eyes at the thought, but he pushes the self-loathing down. His own feelings are the last thing he needs to be focusing on. 

He can be selfish later, when the lights are off and the apartment is empty. Only then will he let himself cry, and God will he cry. Cry and scream and pray and then scream some more. He’ll curse at God for letting this happen and then pray again and again and again until his voice is hoarse.

But no, he won’t focus on his own feelings until later, until she’s back home safe and sound because he needs to put his complete focus into making that happen. She needs him. 

Santi knows the statistics, knows how crucial the first forty eight hours are.

He’s already down three, maybe four. All because he’d been too late, all because he-

He stops himself.

Facts. He needs to focus on the facts.

The gun he keeps locked away in a safe under the bed, a safe that he was sure his wife didn’t even know the combination to, is missing though nothing else seems to be out of place. Her cellphone, her purse, everything she usually came home with was right where it should be, her jewelry box hadn’t been moved or gone through as far as he could tell.

It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong, that was clear, and the realization that this was something far more personal makes him sick to his stomach.

Santi doesn’t understand how something like this could happen, doesn’t understand who could hate her or him so much that they would resort to kidnapping, would resort to taking the one thing that matters most to him. A former perp, perhaps. Someone Santi had put away for a few odd years. He makes a mental note to check the database for anyone who had been released in the last few months.

He can feel his blood begin to boil as the initial shock starts to wear off. _God_ , he’s angry. So, so angry. The love of his life, his reason for existing is missing and hurt and all he can do at the moment is sit there and try his hardest to answer the questions that are thrown his way by the detectives — his co-workers, their friends.

He suddenly understands why people always grow so agitated with him during initial questioning. It feels almost redundant, like it’s doing nothing to help and is only wasting time. 

And Santi finds himself stuck between a rock and a hard place, because he’d been a detective for a few years between getting out of the military and joining the DEA. This had been his job, and it’s something that he continues to see every single day — something he knows how to deal with from a professional standpoint. 

But this isn’t work. This isn’t just a case being passed into his hands. 

It’s her, it's his _wife_. 

And while his first instinct is to handle it like a detective would, he’s her husband and she’s gone and he has no idea where to even begin.

He hears Jay, a detective he knows well and would even consider one of his closest friends, say something about finding blood out on the fire escape. Santiago immediately tries to think of the surrounding buildings, if any would have cameras that might have captured anything at all. He thinks about the coffee shop on the first floor of their building, but it’ll take hours to track down the owner and get them in so they can review the tapes. And judging by the amount of blood on the bathroom floor, she doesn’t have hours.

Santi slams his hand against the mattress in frustration, causing each detective and tech in the room to glance his way in concern and worry, though they all stay silent for close to a minute, all unsure of what to say or if it was even okay for them to move.

“She’s strong, man,” Jay says once the silence becomes close to unbearable. “We’ll find her.”

“Jay,” Parker mumbles in response, the other detective’s voice stern, almost as if she’s chastising a small child.

Santi knows why. He knows that Parker is thinking the same thing he’d just been considering himself.

They both know what her chances of still being alive are, and they know that they’re not in her favor.

But Jay seems so sure of himself, his conviction and his drive makes Santi curse under his breath because he knows that he should be the one spewing words of optimism and hope. If anyone should have faith in her ability to survive, it should be him.

And so, he refuses to let himself think that way any longer, he won’t let himself fall into such a low place so soon into the investigation. There’s still a chance, still hope, and Santi will cling to both until he has her back in his arms, right where she belongs. He will cling to it until someone forcefully rips it out from under him, and even then, he’s not entirely sure that he’ll give up. 

“He’s right,” Santi finally says, his leg still bouncing though faster than before. “We’ll find her.”

Jay smiles reassuringly, nodding his head once, and Parker frowns disapprovingly, believing that any sense of hope they’re holding onto is false, but she kept quiet.

Cameron can’t bring herself to say anything. All she can do is nod once and try her hardest to keep her frown from turning into a full on grimace. 

She’s angry, of course she is. Her co-worker’s wife, a nurse who always took such good care of any victim Cameron brought to her, her _friend_ had been taken. She knows that none of them should even be anywhere near the case, knows that it’s far too personal, but she also knows that Santi won’t allow anyone else to oversee it. As long as they all remain professional, she doesn’t see an issue with keeping her squad on it.

Jay is the first to break the silence again. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Santi looks up at the other man, a protest or question, could be either, pursed on his lips, but Jay doesn't give him the chance to speak before he continues on.

“You can’t stay here, man. Not tonight, at least.”

Santi only frowns, but Parker nods in agreement.

“He’s right.”

Everyone can see the apprehension on Santi’s face. What if she comes back in the middle of the night, hurt and scared and looking for him? He wouldn’t be there when she needed him, for the second time that day, and the thought makes his stomach churn and the panic begins to settle back between his ribs, making it hard for him to breathe. He starts to shake his head aggressively, like a toddler who didn’t get their way, when Cameron finally finds her voice.

“I’ll stay here and keep an eye on everything,” she says, almost as if she could read his mind.

Santi meets her eyes, seeming to search for something within them, though she’s not sure what. Honesty, maybe? Sincerity? A promise? She can understand why he wouldn’t be the most trusting person just then.

But after a second or two, his shoulders sag even further, if that were at all possible. He knows he needs to listen.

“Cam, it’s okay. It’s not like I’m going to get much sleep anyways.”

“You can at least try,” she sighs, voice stern, leaving no room for argument. “You definitely won’t get any if you stay here. Let Jay take you back to his place.”

Santi looks as if he wants to protest again, but his expression quickly morphs into one of compliance. Cameron nods once, signifying that her order is final before she excuses herself.

Without another word, Santi stands from the bed, his legs feeling as if they’ll buckle beneath him at any given moment, and he makes his way into the closet. He grabs a random overnight bag and stuffs a few sets of clothes inside, not really caring whether or not anything matches or whether they’ll wrinkle. He probably shouldn’t be taking them in the first place, shouldn’t have touched anything until the techs were completely through with their search. He doesn’t care. If he’s being forced to leave, he just wants to get out of there.

And he’s just about to walk back into the bedroom when something on her side of the closet catches his eye. 

Sitting on the shelf, half hidden by clothes hanging down from the rack, is a stuffed wolf that she’d kept from when she was a little girl. She’d named him Nevada, though she could never explain why, and Santi knows for a fact that he had been in the bed that morning, just like he'd been every morning before — she refused to sleep without Nevada, something he had never once teased her for, something that honestly made him fall even harder for her when they first met.

He grabs the stuffed animal gently in his hands, as if it were made of fragile glass rather than stuffing and fabric, and upon further examination, after feeling a cool brush of metal against his fingertips, he notices something that makes his heart stop and his blood run cold.

Her wedding band and engagement ring are both shoved onto the tail, impeccably polished and glistening as always.

Santi feels his head start to spin. He stumbles backwards, catching himself on the wall and he immediately feels like he’s going to be sick but he only dry heaves, his stomach empty.

He shakes his head once, twice, three times. Who would take the time to leave her wedding rings behind? Not only that, but to put them on a stuffed animal that meant so much to her and move that as well?

Most would take the rings and pawn them, would never even glance towards a stuffed wolf sitting in a bed. It’s far too personal and Santi-

It’s far too personal.

The realization hits Santi like a truck and sends him pushing off the wall at a velocity that nearly causes him trip over his own two feet. He comes stumbling out of the closet, face pale and beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead. The squad stops their conversation and all turn to him with raised eyebrows and varying levels of concern written across their faces.

“Her ex-boyfriend,” he pants, not realizing that he’d been holding his breath until that very moment. “Nathan Graham. Complete lunatic. We had to file a no contact order after we got married.”

Jay’s already pulling an officer off to the side before Santi can even finish his sentence, and he gives the deputy strict instructions to run the guy’s name and gather all of the information he can, and to do it quickly.

“Do you know if there was any history of abuse?”

Santi freezes, and he looks like he doesn’t want to answer, because really, he doesn’t. He knows that she hates to admit it, has never wanted anyone to know. She didn’t even want to tell Santi at first, but when Nathan started trying to wedge his way back into her life, she’d been forced to.

After a few seconds of silently battling with himself, Santi nods, knowing that it’s important information that he needed to divulge.

Another sigh escapes Cameron’s lips.

“Looks like you’re not getting any sleep after all, Pope.”


	2. Chapter 2

The address the deputy finds is for an apartment complex in Princeton. Santi briefly wonders when Nathan had moved out of New York, but he knows that it doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters except for the fact that he’s one step closer to finding her and one step closer to making sure her Nathan never sees another day outside of a prison cell.

Jay and Santi are in one squad car while Cameron and Parker take up the one directly behind. Three police cruisers lead the way, lights blazing and sirens blaring. Santi’s head is pounding, though he knows that the lights and sirens have nothing to do with it — he’s grown immune to both over the years. No, he knows that he’s beginning to make himself physically ill from the stress and anxiety, but he also knows that there was no way that he could possibly even begin to calm himself down. He didn’t want to calm down.

He also knows that Jay keeps a bottle of ibuprofen stashed away in the glovebox, but even so, he’s not going to pop a pill to take the edge off because the pain is the only thing keeping him grounded — the only thing that makes him feel a little bit sane, the only thing keeping him from spiraling completely. And not only is the ache keeping him there and in the moment, but he also feels like he doesn’t deserve to numb it.

She’s out there somewhere, without a doubt in more pain than he’s even close to being in, and it wouldn’t be fair. He knows that it’s twisted and that she would chastise him if he ever told her that his head had been in such a place, but why should he be free of his pain while she’s still suffering? When it’s all his fault in the first place?

Santi glances towards the clock, and his chest clenches at the time. It's just after three in the morning. She’d left his office right before eight that night, and Santi’s guessing that she'd arrived home at around nine. He didn’t make it home until a little after midnight and for all he knew, Nathan could have already been in the apartment by the time she got there which meant that she’d been missing for six hours already. 

Santi doesn’t like that, not at all, and the pressure in his head only seems to intensify as he starts to think of all the different variables and possibilities.

He rips his eyes away from the glowing numbers, instead deciding to focus his gaze down towards his knees. The orange glow of overhead streetlamps gives little light in the tiny car, but it’s still enough for Santi to notice the stains that cover his pants.

Dry blood. Her blood.

He’d stumbled upon entering the bathroom — had fallen to his knees, hand coming up to clutch his chest as he felt like the wind had been forcefully knocked from his lungs. 

He doesn’t remember much else from the first hour after arriving home to an empty, bloodsoaked apartment. He remembers fumbling for his phone while still kneeling on the bathroom floor, and he remembers shakily dialing Cameron’s number. He doesn’t remember what he had told her, or how long it took for them to arrive after he hung up, but he does remember that it had felt like hours when in reality, it had probably only been ten minutes tops.

But did he even hang up, or had she kept him on the line? Had he been crying? He remembers Cameron placing a hand on his shoulder, he remembers her asking him what happened, her voice far too calm for the situation, and he remembers briefly wondering if she thought that he’d done something to her. He remembers not being able to answer Cameron’s question, his words coming out a jumbled mess, and then there were arms, Jay’s arms, hooking themselves underneath his, hoisting his body off of the floor and dragging him to the bed.

And then there’s nothing for another hour. He doesn’t remember what questions had been asked, or what his answers had been, if he had even answered at all. If they’d found anything of significance. It was like he'd been asleep the entire time, only waking when his irritation had reached a level that forced him to break through the haze.

Santi continues to stare at the blood, trying his hardest to further piece together the events of the night, but he just can’t and the panic starts to creep its way into his veins once more. His skin starts to burn and he brings his hand up in a futile attempt to scratch away the blood, though he knows that it’s pointless. He knows he’ll never be able to get rid of the stain no matter how hard he scratches or rubs, or how many times he washes them.

He doesn’t get a chance to really work at it though, because his hand freezes as soon as it comes into contact with the fabric, and his jaw clenches as he notices the crimson caked around his cuticles, under his nails, settled between the lines that covered his palm.

So much blood, so much red.

All he can do is stare, for how long he doesn’t know, but he does manage to finally retract his hand, deciding to rest it on his stomach overtop of his DEA vest. He brings his attention back to the trees flying by.

“How much longer?” Santi asks, his voice cracking towards the end, though he makes no effort to try and cover it up.

Jay briefly looks towards the GPS, then towards Santi before settling his eyes back on the road in front of him. “Any minute now.”

Santi internally groans, letting his head fall against the cool glass of the window. He’s been quiet for the entire drive, and Jay would be lying if he said the silence doesn’t worry him, but then again he doesn’t think he would be up to talk about the weather or what song was being overplayed on the radio if he were in Santi’s position. He can’t blame him.

Jay hadn't been lying when he said that they were just a few minutes out from the complex, and Santi feels his pulse quicken exponentially as the street sign comes into view. Jay quickly, and probably a little sharper than he should have, turns off the main road and comes to an abrupt stop in a small, cop-filled parking lot.

Santi counts at least seven Princeton PD cars, a SWAT van, and two ambulances. They’d called Princeton as they were leaving Manhattan, Cameron giving strict instructions to call her back if they found anything, but as far as Santi knew, she had never received a call. He was sure she would’ve called him had they found her, would have told him to go to the hospital rather than the apartment complex. He can feel his hope slipping further and further away as he steps out of the car. He doesn’t see a coroner, so he takes that as one good sign.

Jay calls his name, but Santi ignores him. He weaves his way through the crowd of officers, looking for any sign of her or any indication that they had found something, anything at all. There are a few hushed whispers — a deputy telling an EMT that they were searching for the wife of a DEA agent, something about pictures, but nothing that brings him any sense of comfort. Jay finally catches up with him and tugs on his arm in order to get his attention.

“What was the apartment number again?”

“311,” Santi responds, his eyes still searching the crowd.

He’s not even sure what he’s looking for anymore.

He curses under his breath when the realization that she’s not there finally finds its way past the denial. He lets his head fall, a hand flying to his face so he can pinch the bridge of his nose. His head feels as if somebody’s pushing a metal stake through his skull, and he can feel his lungs begin to burn as he struggles to breathe properly. He doesn’t really remember how.

Jay watches as Santi fights to compose himself. He wants to comfort him, to let him know that everything will be okay, but if he’s being completely honest he doesn’t know how. He only gently, encouragingly slaps Santi’s shoulder, effectively getting the other man to finally glance up at him.

“Come on, let’s go up. Maybe they found something.”

Santi seems to think about it for a moment. Does he really want to be in Nathan’s apartment? The short answer is no, he wants to be anywhere but there, but he nods his head anyways. He takes a deep breath and nods one more time before following Jay.

It’s not hard to tell which apartment belongs to Nathan — a cop would enter, and two more would exit. The standard, yellow police tape blocks off a small perimeter around the doorway, and Santi and Jay both flash their badges to the attending officer before ducking underneath.

The small apartment is filled with law enforcement, and for some reason, Santi feels very out of place. He frowns as the feeling settles deep in the pit of his stomach, but he tries his best to ignore it.

But Jay picks up on the fact that something’s wrong, because he stops in the doorway and turns to Santi with furrowed eyebrows, his hand coming up to the other man’s chest to keep him from moving any further into the apartment.

“What’s up?”

Santi shakes his head, his eyes roaming around the room almost frantically. He subconsciously begins to tap his foot against the floor, a nervous habit that took him years to break but suddenly decided to creep back in. “I feel like I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why, because you’re her husband or because she’s not here?”

He takes a moment to answer, seeming to weigh both options in his mind. “Both.”

“Listen, you know you don’t have to be here. Like, you really shouldn’t be here at all to begin with.”

Santi knows that. He knows the problems that could arise from him getting involved, both from a professional and a personal standpoint, knows he could compromise her case if he lets his emotions and attachment get the best of him. Fuck, he isn’t even a detective anymore, he’s not with his squad. Cameron is really pulling some strings to allow him in, but he’s also sure no one else knows that he’s involving himself.

“I just feel like we’re wasting time.”

He feels like he could do a better job on his own, with his boys.

“Pope, we don’t have anything else to go off of...”

“I know that, I’m just-”

Santi isn’t sure how to finish his thought. He’s just stressed, just worried and anxious, just wants nothing more than to have her back in his arms, safe and sound and protected.

“I dunno,” he finishes after another moment, a sigh falling from his lips as he shrugs his shoulders. He really doesn’t know.

Jay nods, seeming to understand what Santi means even though he can’t explain it. “This is our best starting point. We can go from here, alright?”

Santi nods once again, and the pair turn to start making their way through the apartment when they’re almost immediately stopped by someone wearing a Princeton PD jacket.

“Manhattan?”

Jay nods, extending his hand out.

“Lieutenant Anderson,” the officer says, returning the handshake while glancing between the pair. Jay introduces them both, then shoves his hands back into the pocket of his jeans while Santi just stands there, looking a little disinterested. To him, pleasantries are only another waste of time.

But Anderson’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise at the mention of Santi’s name before settling into a thin line across his forehead. His eyes roam downwards for just a brief second, taking notice that Santiago isn’t wearing a standard NYPD vest. 

“Garcia?”

Santi frowns, eyes narrowing as the Lieutenant repeats his name, his tone sounding almost accusatory, questioning, and the three stand in silence for several seconds, Santi and Anderson not once looking away from each other. 

Anderson is the first to break.

“What’s your relation to the vic-”

“I’m her husband,” he interrupts, anger coursing through his bloodstream at the Lieutenant’s word choice. He swallows thickly, pushing the rage down and crossing his arms over his chest. “And I would prefer for you to use her name.”

Anderson smiles coldly. He shoves his own hands into the pockets of his jacket and rocks back and forth on his heels a few times, appearing as if he’s actually enjoying Pope’s discomfort. “Of course. My mistake. Didn’t mean to offend you or Mrs. Garcia.”

Santi is seething but he keeps his mouth shut, keeps his fists hidden. The last thing he needs to do is lashout at another law enforcement officer and have Cameron revoke his privileges. He doubts that she would in the end, but she would at least threaten it. And then his boss will hear about it and that’s just something Santi isn’t willing to deal with, no matter how hard he wants to land one swift, solid punch to Anderson’s jaw.

Another man in a PDP vest approaches them just then, after another short bout of silence, and he whispers something into Anderson’s ear that neither Santi nor Jay can hear while handing over a small white box.

“What’s that?” Santi asks, his impatience definitely showing.

Anderson merely shoves the box under his arm and waves for them to follow before walking towards the kitchen, the one room that seemed to be unoccupied at the time. Santi is growing more and more annoyed with the Lieutenant with each passing second. Jay’s trying his hardest to stay neutral, but even he’s growing irritated with Anderson’s apparent arrogance and disinterest.

She deserves more than that.

Anderson sets the box down on the counter then take a step away, causing Jay to scoff and Santi to roll his eyes at how dramatic the simple action appeared, but before anyone can comment on it, Santi reaches forward and flips the top off of the box without a second thought.

His frustration is quickly replaced by horror.

Santi feels his heart drop and his face turn pale. His stomach flips as he feels the urge to throw up for what felt like the hundredth time that night. He’s dizzy and has to blink several times to make sure that he’s really looking at what he thinks he is, needs to be one hundred percent sure that’s he’s not hallucinating. Jay looks just as alarmed, and he has half a mind to pull Santi away from the box and out of that goddamn apartment, but they’re both frozen in place, their eyes locked on what has to be hundreds of black and white photographs.

Hundreds of black and white photographs of her and Santi.

Anderson reaches into the box and takes a handful before laying them across the counter so they can get a better look, not that either of them really want to.

There’s pictures of the two of them standing in line at their favorite coffee shop, the one on the first floor of their apartment building — they stopped in nearly every morning before work to get their caffeine fix, and she would sometimes pop in on her way home if she left work early enough. His arm is around her shoulders or around her waist in most of them, something that he always did when they were out in public together because he likes to touch her, to feel her just so he always know that she’s there. There are some where she’s alone and Santi faces the fact that Nathan could’ve easily grabbed her then.

There are pictures of them outside of the hospital, outside of the DEA. Some of them at restaurants and a few from the grocery store. A handful taken outside of her mother’s house, where they went every Sunday morning for breakfast.

There’s even a few sets of them inside their apartment, taken from their fire escape. Santi feels his cheeks heat up as those are laid out in front of him, because not all of them are innocent and the fact that they’d been watched and photographed while making love had him dizzy.

But he’s not embarrassed because they’d been watched — sure it bothers him, of course it does, but he's not embarrassed. No, he’s embarrassed by the fact that he never once noticed Nathan.

The date on the pictures span over a course of thirteen months, the first one taken on September 20th of the previous year while the last one was taken on October 4th, just a few weeks before, and he had been oblivious to each and every one.

Jay’s seen enough. He firmly takes hold of Santi’s arm and drags him out of the tiny apartment, down the three flights of stairs, and out to the car, completely ignoring and bypassing Cameron and Parker, ignoring how they call out to them. Santi pulls away right as Jay throws open the car door, stumbling towards the grass before falling to his knees for the second time that night. He coughs, then splutters, the water Jay had forced him to drink on their way to Princeton coming back up and burning his throat as he heaves into the grass.

It’s his fault. It’s all Santi’s fault and if he had just been a little more observant, he could’ve kept her safe. If he had just been able to spot Nathan even once, he could’ve had him arrested for violating the restraining order and then maybe, fucking maybe she would be at home, tucked underneath the covers and _safe_.

Cameron quickly rushes over to Santi, though she makes no move to touch him. He’s breathing heavily, struggling to pull air into his lungs. The pain in his head is now close to unbearable, but he still refuses to verbally acknowledge it. He still doesn’t cry, still refuses to let himself break completely. He doesn’t want anyone worrying about him, though he knows they already were.

And he’s right. They’ve never seen Santi so shaken up before, though no one can blame him. It’s completely expected and absolutely warranted.

Cameron gives Santi a couple of minutes to calm himself before she speaks softly to him, gently reaching forward to place a hand on his shoulder. “You need to go home and get some rest.”

“I can’t,” Santi replies without missing a beat. “I need to find her.”

“There’s nothing more you can do tonight Pope. Let Jay take you home.”

Santi stays quiet. He’s mentally and physically exhausted, and he knows that there’s no way he can continue to work in the condition his body is in. And not only that, but he knows that Cameron is right — there’s nothing more to be done. Their hunt led them to a dead end, and like Jay had said earlier, they had nothing else to go off of.

He decides to save his energy, he knows it’s not worth fighting them on it because he would only lose, and Cameron would eventually force him to at least lay down even if he stayed wide awake, even if it was at a hotel in Princeton.

He grumbles out a short, clipped “fine” and stands without another word. He flinches at the irritation that’s evident in his voice because he knows the squad doesn’t deserve it, but he can’t find the energy to care any further, can’t find the energy to apologize. He just hopes that Cameron doesn’t take it personally.

And she doesn’t. She watches closely, cautiously as Santi walks back to the car and settles into the passenger’s seat. The squad all glance at one another, their worry evident, radiating from them and bouncing off one another.

“The same goes for you two,” Cameron instructs, her voice holding no room for argument. “We won’t be of any use to Garcia if we’re all exhausted.”

Neither of them feel the need to ask which of the Garcia’s Cameron is referring to — they know that both need them at their best and on top of their game.

But the wait — the not being able to do anything because they didn’t _have_ anything is already agonizing.

Sleep won’t come easy for any of them.


	3. Chapter 3

_**OCTOBER 19TH — DAY THREE** _

Two days pass with absolutely nothing. Santi’s boss has given him strict orders to stay as far away from work as possible, and he actually decides to listen for a change. He knows he would be useless to his co-workers in his current state.

Cameron refuses to let him anywhere near the precinct either, saying it’ll only add to his stress. He knows she’s right, but part of him still wishes he could be there, just so he can sit right by the phone and be the first to know if she’d been found, but he doubts that Cameron would budge on the matter. He still begged her to call him if she heard anything at all though, and she’d promised she would.

It’s not a promise Santiago is taking lightly.

He’s hardly left Jay’s couch since arriving back in New York from Princeton. He only gets up when it’s absolutely necessary, and even then, it’s only for a minute or two at a time. He hasn’t combed his hair, has only brushed his teeth once. His drive and motivation are just completely lacking without her.

He’s been wearing the same set of sweats from the moment he was able to change out of his blood soaked clothes. He has no idea what Jay’s done with them, but he hopes they were put in the trash and not sitting at the bottom of the washing machine. He never wants to see those damn pants ever again, or the shirt for that matter. He’d been contemplating setting both articles of clothing on fire, but he was positive that Jay wouldn’t appreciate the smoke and ash filling his apartment, setting the fire alarm off and disturbing his neighbors.

But fuck, had he wanted to watch them burn.

The news of her disappearance spread rapidly, and Pope still doesn’t know if he’s thankful for the attention or if the coverage only continued to add to his rage and unease. He figures that he’s allowed to feel both.

Cameron had spoken at a press conference in the early morning following their trip to Princeton, and there had been an article printed on the front page of several newspapers. They’d used a fairly recent photo of her, one that was taken while she was dressed out in her scrubs. Santi was actually in it as well, though they’d cropped him out of course.

It had been one of his favorite pictures of the two of them together, but now it just makes his stomach sick every single time it flashes across the TV screen.

Her parents had been notified just prior to the press conference. Santi hadn’t been the one to make the phone call, and while he felt some sort of guilt over it, he was also glad he hadn’t had to face them yet — he’s not ready for her mother’s tears or her father’s icecold glare and sharp words. He knows they’re going to blame him for not protecting her properly, for not doing what was supposed to be his one job when it came to her, just as he was blaming himself.

He doesn’t know if he’ll _ever_ be able to face them.

He doesn’t even know how to face his own parents. 

His mother calls him at least once an hour, and each time he lets it go to voicemail. He has 41 missed calls and almost twice as many unopened texts, but he never fails to check who they’re from, jumping to his feet and snatching his phone from wherever it lay each time a new one came through, just in case it’s an unknown number that might be her or even Nathan.

But it only continues to be his mom and sometimes the boys, though they’re trying their best to give him the space they know he needs.

He doesn’t think he needs space.

Santi starts to have second thoughts about staying away from work. The later the day drags on, the more and more anxious he feels. 

The more and more useless. 

He _needs_ to do something other than just sitting there, watching TV and waiting for the phone to ring once again.

He’s better than this, worth more than this. If he could only work on his own or with the boys even, he was sure they’d be ten steps closer to finding her. He knows it and he can’t stand playing by the damn rules but his emotions are still running too high and he doesn’t even know where to begin.

All Santi knows is that he can’t fucking sit there and do nothing anymore.

He throws the blanket off of his legs and stands from the couch, immediately going to the bag he’d brought from the apartment, pulling out a pair of faded jeans and a black t-shirt. It’s obvious that his shirt hadn’t been properly folded, but he has his bullet proof vest to throw on over the wrinkled garment, not that he really cares and not that it really matters.

He’s out the door within ten minutes.

* * *

Parker is the first to see Santi enter the precinct. She’s sitting at one of the tables in the corner, idly talking with Cameron about a case from several years ago and she can’t help the sigh and the not-so-subtle shake of her head that follows upon seeing him walk towards them.

“I thought you told Garcia that he couldn’t be here.”

“I did.”

She doesn’t have to turn around to know that Santi’s approaching, and she still doesn’t turn around even when she senses him come to a stop directly behind her, just a few feet away.

“But you and I both know how well he tends to follow directions.”

“Yeah,” Parker scoffs, shaking her head once again and folding her arms across her chest.

Cameron finally turns in her chair, facing Santi after several long seconds. She feels a twinge in her chest as she takes in his dejected expression and tired eyes. He looks rough, and so so worried but that’s all to be expected. She swallows the lump in her throat and wills her own nerves to settle, giving her full attention to Santi.

“What are you doing here Pope?”

“Do you know how fuckin’ awful daytime television is?”

“What, Judge Judy not doing it for you?” Parker jokes, a smirk plastered across her face as she leans further back into her chair.

Santi cracks a small smile, his first one in days, though it’s nowhere near genuine. It’s so extremely forced, his cheeks ache with the effort even. He shuffles his feet gently, glancing at his shoes briefly before he looks back up to Cameron.

“I just can’t sit on Jay’s couch anymore. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Cameron nods her head in understanding. She can’t count how many times she’s sat at home, her mind captivated by a case that she wanted nothing more than to work on for every second of the day. She tries to relate her own experience to what Santi must be feeling, but she still can’t imagine what he must be going through, as the case involves his wife and not just a random victim. She would be so far gone had she been in his shoes.

“You know,” she starts, trying to think of the best possible way to word her sentence. “You’re her husband first, before anything else you’re her partner Santiago. You really don’t need to be her detective too.” She refrains from reminding him that technically, he’s not even officially on the case. “We can handle this, Pope. You’re allowed to take the time to grieve.”

“I don’t want to grieve,” he mumbles under his breath, almost inaudibly. He sounds so completely unlike himself. Cameron begins to speak again, but he interrupts her with a shake of his head. “Not yet.”

Cameron knows it’s not the time to talk about statistics and probability. She knows Santi doesn’t need to be reminded of her chances and Cameron’s not even really paying attention to the numbers herself because this is _her_ they’re talking about. It’s far too close to home.

They’ve definitely recovered missing persons who had been gone for much, much longer.

So she only nods her head slowly, giving Santi a soft, gentle smile. “How would you feel about doing some paperwork for me then? There’s still some notes on my desk that need to be entered in.”

She knows it would be better to give him some sort of work — something to distract his mind so he’s not just sitting there, only further losing himself to worry and panic. Santi seems to feel the same way because he nods without question, not complaining or groaning in protest like he used to whenever she’d ask him to do her paperwork.

“I can do that.”

Santi walks off without another word, sitting himself behind Cameron’s desk, trying to drown himself in busy work. He just needs to turn his brain off, put it on something else for a while. 

And it works, kind of. At least, he thinks it does, but Cameron can’t help but frown at the haunted look that lingers in Santi’s eyes, still so noticeable even from across the room. Parker sighs quietly, looking between her lieutenant and Pope.

“You sure this is a good idea?”

She doesn’t know what to tell her, because no, she’s not sure. She’s not sure at fucking all.

Part of her think that he needs to take a step back and stay away, but a larger part of her doesn’t think having him cooped up in an apartment with only his thoughts to keep him company is a good idea either.

At least this way, he isn’t alone and they can keep an eye on him. Make sure that he wasn’t doing anything irrational, make sure he’s taking care of himself, drinking water and eating.

And so, she’s honest.

“I don’t know.”

Parker only nods, her stance on the situation exactly the same. It’s a hard position to be in, no doubt, having to decide whether you’re going to act as a friend or a person of authority.

Nothing else is said between the pair, and the day drags on slowly, though no one is complaining. Slow is a nice change, especially given the added stress they’re all under. Jay returns to the precinct from interviewing some of Nathan’s old co-workers sometime in the early afternoon, instantly noticing Santi sitting at Cameron’s desk, though after one look towards his Lieutenant, he decides not to say anything.

It was just before three o’clock when Santi is broken from an almost trance-like state. He’s been so focused on typing up report after report he’s hardly noticed the world around him in the time that’s passed. He isn’t even entirely sure what pulled his attention away until he feels his Apple watch buzz against his wrist.

He rolls his eyes, only slightly annoyed at the interruption. A sigh leaves his lips as he raises his watch to see who’d decided to text him — it was probably just his mother or maybe Frankie, trying to get in touch with him again, asking how-

Santi feels his blood run cold the moment the display of his watch comes up, because the name that flashes across the screen definitely isn’t his mother’s.

The name that flashed across the screen reads “Mi Vida”, or “My Life” from Spanish to English.

It’s her. Or, it’s at least her Apple watch. Her cell phone is still at the apartment, but Santi had completely forgotten about her watch.

He quickly shakes the shock away, blinking several times as her name fades away and the actual message comes onto the screen. It’s a picture, one Santi couldn’t see very well because of the small screen and he lets out a loud curse, not caring about the stares he receives in return, hastily digging his phone out of his pocket, unlocking it and pulling up the text thread in a matter of seconds.

Santi’s stomach drops. His face turns pale and he feels the need to vomit yet again, though his stomach still doesn’t have much of anything to offer.

Jay hears Santi’s outburst and promptly makes his way over to the desk. Santi hears him ask what's wrong, but he can’t form the words, can’t make himself say anything. He doesn’t want to, doesn’t know how to. His entire focus is on his phone, on the picture in his hands. Because she’s in it, but it isn’t a happy picture — not one that he would normally sit back and admire with a soft smile and even softer eyes.

She’s in it, but she’s tied up, legs and arms bound with a gag in place. There’s an obvious cut in her eyebrow, no doubt from the broken shards of glass of their once bathroom mirror. It looks as if her hands are tied to a bed frame or a pole of some kind — Santi can’t tell, doesn’t care enough about that aspect of the photo, no.

No, he’s much more focused on her face, on the terror that is so evident and haunting he’s sure that he’ll see the same image every time he closes his eyes for the rest of his life. She looks so scared, so terrified, and Santi feels his heart shatter even further, and his own fear grips him tight and refuses to let go, doesn’t allow him to move even a muscle.

He still holds completely still even after Jay yanks the phone from his grasp, still stares into thin air at where the phone had been. Jay looks at him, concern etched all over his face until he looks at the screen, suddenly understanding the horror that’s taken over his friend.

“Cameron!” Jay calls out, the panic evident in his voice, his feet not daring to move. He feels stuck in place.

Santi still doesn’t move, he can’t move, doesn’t want to move because he feels as if he might faint but Cameron is the exact opposite, rushing over with Parker right behind.

Jay holds the phone out to her with shaky hands, but reels back when he feels it vibrate again.

Another message comes through from her watch. She, or rather Nathan, started sharing their current location — somewhere in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Santi hears the buzz, and promptly snatches the phone from Jay, looking at it for a moment before Cameron does the same to him.

She stands silent for several seconds. Part of her feels like it’s a trap, a set up to lure them off-course. It’s just too easy, it’s never _that_ easy. There’s something entirely off about it, and the nerves in her stomach pick back up at a rapid speed.

But she can’t just ignore it because her instinct is off. It was too large of a lead to be ignored.

“Jay, call down to Allentown. Have them set up roadblocks on all routes out. Parker, start calling the surrounding towns and have them do the same. No one approaches Nathan until we’re there.”

They both fall into action immediately, doing as they’re asked, but Santi continues to sit quietly in his chair, eyes void of any and all emotion.

Cameron leans over him, pulling the chair back so he rolls a few feet away from the desk.

“Come on, Santiago,” she says gently, clasping her hand on his shoulder, giving him an encouraging squeeze.

Santi stands without a word, taking his vest off the back of the chair, putting it on slowly, slower than Cameron has ever seen him. She watches him closely, her heart sinking as she does so, as she thinks about so many different outcomes and possibilities.

If they don’t find her, she doesn’t know what will happen to Santi. What Pope will do, who he’ll become in the midst of his grief. 

She isn’t ready to lose both Garcia’s.

* * *

The drive to Allentown is even more agonizing than the drive to Princeton. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes feel like hours. The wait and uncertainty of it all is killing everyone, and the butterflies in the pits of their stomachs are buzzing around in a crazy sort of frenzy, though they’re by no means good or even tolerable butterflies. They so desperately want this lead to bring something promising, but the doubt still looms over their minds, causing nothing but anxiety and unwelcome thoughts.

Santi is leaning against the cool window of the squad car. Cameron’s driving, her knuckles white as she tightly grips the steering wheel. Every few seconds, she’ll glance over at him, just to check on him, though she doesn’t expect any change. He hasn’t moved since they left the city, hasn’t said a word and still she feels the need to just keep checking. Keep monitoring.

Santi watches the trees pass by in a blur. The last time he’d been to Pennsylvania, he’d been with her, when she wanted to take a weekend trip down to State College to show him around PSU, where she’d gone to school to earn her nursing degree. She’d taken him all around campus, even introducing him to her favorite professor. They went to eat at her favorite restaurants, she drove him past the house she had spent her senior year in. They had even caught the game that weekend against the University of Michigan.

It’d been such a fun weekend, but even the memory of it couldn’t bring a smile to Santi’s face. None of their memories together seem to trigger anything in that moment and he’s been flipping through them all, searching for one that doesn’t make him want to cry. 

He thinks about all of the different trips they’d taken together, he thinks about their lazy Sunday mornings spent between the sheets, the stolen kisses and the sweet nothings whispered into each other’s ears — words spoken with so much conviction and love and trust. He thinks of the late night Netflix binges and the endless amount of family dinners her mother invited them to. Even the memory of their wedding makes Santi want to break down and sob, but he figures that to be the fact that their two year wedding anniversary is quickly approaching and he doesn’t know whether or not he would be spending it alone.

He thinks back to the first day they’d met, when the DEA had been working with the NYPD on a bust and he’d gone to interview a victim at the hospital. All it took was one look at her and he knew that he was a goner. Her confidence and her beauty had completely knocked the breath from his lungs, and he remembers feeling absolutely floored when he’d witnessed her interact with a patient for the first time.

He’d asked her on their first date three months later, after taking every chance he could find to visit the hospital. He expected her to be hesitant but she had accepted almost immediately, taking him by surprise but making him oh so happy at the same time. When he had asked her why, months after the fact, she had simply answered by saying “ _because I knew I was going to marry you the first moment I saw you_.”

Santi had known the same, if he was being completely honest, and so he proposed after only nine months, and they married fourteen after that. He’d never pictured himself proposing to someone after such little time, really he never imagined getting married at all, but it had just felt right with her. 

Everything with her just feels so absolutely right. He doesn’t want to think about what the last four years of his life would have been like if he didn’t know her.

And of course he can’t imagine going forward without her, either. Can’t imagine waking up for the rest of his life without her by his side, can’t imagine not being able to hear her laugh ever again, or being able to tell her he loves her.

Had he told her? When she was leaving his office that night, had Santi told her how much he loved her? Had he given her a kiss goodbye? Or had he been too preoccupied with the mountain of work that had been covering his desk?

He can’t remember.

He’s almost sure that he had, but he can’t help but second guess himself because he knows how easily distracted he can become.

There’s a new wave of guilt that comes washing over him, and he can’t help but feel so conflicted. He had tried to do something nice by letting her go home when she had been trying so hard to stay and wait for him. He knew she had been exhausted, but if he had just been a little selfish, if he had just let her stay with him then she might still be here. They would’ve entered their apartment together and there was absolutely no way in hell Santi would’ve let Nathan walk out with her.

He starts thinking about all of the times he had sent her home alone before, and how many opportunities that meant Nathan would have had to take her.

He quickly shoves the thought away after feeling his head begin to spin. Santi swallows the lump in his throat and gently shuts his eyes, trying to make himself think about anything else.

He doesn’t open them again until they arrive in Allentown thirty minutes later.

They flip their lights on just after they cross city limits, but keep their sirens turned off, a few Allentown PD cars merging behind them as they pass the roadblock. Cameron is following closely behind Parker, who leads the way in the other squad car. Jay had taken Santi’s phone before they left the precinct, and Santi had protested of course, but they all knew what would have happened had Santi kept it. He wouldn’t have looked away from it, not that Jay had been any better himself, but no one thought it was smart to let Santi suffer through the car ride with it in his hand, staring at a map and praying that the location didn’t go out.

Her watch has been sitting in the same location for the last forty five minutes — just outside of a book shop in the center of town. Jay has a bad feeling about the entire situation; a feeling he can only describe as somewhere between doubt and apprehension. He knows that if it had been her and only her, she would’ve gone straight to the Police Department or the hospital. She would have called for help, would have texted Santi, _something_. He knows there’s something wrong, something off.

“Pull off into this parking lot here,” Jay instructs when they’re only two blocks away.

Parker does as she’s told before coming to an abrupt stop, throwing the car into park and hastily climbing out.

Santi is already out of the other car by then, he’d thrown his door open before they were even completely stopped, but Cameron had done the same.

The squad wordlessly gathers into a small circle, all securing their vests and pulling their guns from their holsters, though they keep the safety on as standard protocol. The Allentown officers follow suit, and wait for instruction from Cameron.

She glances at each of her squad members, her eyes lingering on Santi for the longest. They’re all looking at her, all except for him.

He’s instead staring at the ground, jaw clenched and mouth set in a thin, straight line. His eyes are darker than their normal chocolate shade, and Cameron doesn’t like what she sees when she looks into them. There’s a certain sort of determination swimming in his irises — hollow and cold, calculated and oh so sure all at the same time. 

She can tell with just one look that he’s plotting something.

That he’s thinking about what he’s willing to do in order to get her back, what he’s willing to give up. She can tell that he’s made up his mind, that he’ll do and risk anything to save her, and that even then, having her back might not be good enough.

“Pope,” she murmurs gently, almost flinching when his eyes met hers with a glare she knows isn’t truly directed at her. “You don’t have to do this. You can stay here, in the car.”

Santiago scoffs gently, shaking his head and biting the inside of his cheek. “And why would I do that?”

“Because I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’re planning. And Pope, if you do it, you’re going to lose a piece of yourself that you can never get back-”

“I can lose everything!” he snaps, voice raised, the anger and the pain oh so evident in both his tone and the expression written across his face. It makes some of the Allentown officers take a step back, but the squad doesn’t even flinch. 

“I can lose fuckin’ _everything_ but I can’t lose her.”

Cameron is silent, but she still holds his eye contact, still stands her ground. Santi is the first to look away, lip quivering slightly though he quickly sucks in a shaky breath to play it off, pushing his emotions down, down, _down_.

“God, not her.”

The anger quickly fades and is swiftly replaced by sadness and grief, the sudden change jarring for everyone. Cameron feels a pang in her chest as she watches him attempt to hold himself together — Santi has never been good at hiding his anger, but this is different from every other time he’s let his temper show around the squad. 

It’s different and it makes her nod her head and gently clasp him on his shoulder.

“We’ll find her, and then I promise you, Nathan will get what he deserves.”

Santi sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, biting gently as he nods himself, still refusing to actually look towards Cameron. Part of him feels ashamed for the thoughts running through his head, but a larger part of him, the part he’s given into more than once in his time with the military and in law enforcement, didn’t care.

A larger part of him wants nothing more than to watch Nathan suffer.

Cameron waits a few more seconds before giving the squad the order to move, the Allentown officers following closely behind. Jay decides to put himself in front of Santi, and they all quickly make their way towards the book shop, guns drawn and aimed at the ground.

Santi’s the only one with the safety already switched off.

Cameron is several steps ahead, and rounds the corner before anyone else.

She instantly feels the dejection settle in the pit of her stomach, but she’d been expecting it.

She isn’t there, and neither is Nathan. The only person on the street is a teenage boy, looking down and fumbling with something in his hand that looked a lot like-

She stopped in her tracks, a scoff falling from her lips. Jay comes up behind her just a second later, followed directly by Santi.

“Jay, you’re positive we’re in the right spot?”

Jay glances towards the phone that is still in his hand, nodding his head as he double checks, triple checks. “Yeah, I’m sure. The signal is coming from right over there.”

Cameron nods towards the young boy, her shoulders sagging with the words that followed.

“We’ve been played.”

All of the hope anyone had been holding onto quickly fades. The atmosphere surrounding the squad turns heavy instantly, but Santi only feels a fire ignite deep in his chest, twisting his veins, taking over his every thought.

Santi pushes past Jay and Cameron, not bothering to listen as they both call his name, asking him to just hold on for a second and to just let them handle it.

The boy doesn’t look up until Santi snatches the watch away from him, gripping it tightly in his fist before using his other hand to grab the front of the kid’s shirt, effortlessly hoisting him off of the bench.

“Hey, what the hell man-”

“Where did you get this?” Santi questions, voice sharp, caustic, venom dripping from his tongue.

The boy’s eyes widen, and he holds his hands up in surrender once seeing the fury on Santi’s face, shaking his head frantically as he fumbles with his words. “I don’t-”

Santi’s fist tightens around the fabric of his shirt, and he knows what he’s doing is wrong, he shouldn’t be manhandling a young teenage boy but he’s positively seething and all he can see is red and why the _fuck_ did this kid have her fucking watch?

“I’m going to ask you one more time. Where did you get the watch?”

“Pope!” Cameron yells from just behind him, though he didn’t turn the face her, his eyes staying focused on the boy. “Santiago, that’s enough.”

He can’t stop, can’t make himself even if he had wanted to. Not until he gets an answer.

All of the control he has left is completely gone, vanished the moment he realized she isn’t here.

She isn’t there she isn’t here she isn’t-

“Where!?” Santi yells into the boy’s face, completely ignoring Cameron’s command.

“Some guy gave it to me! He said all I had to do was sit here for a little while and that it was mine to keep and-”

“What did he look like?”

“He had brown hair and I...I don’t know man, just let me go!”

“Was there a girl with him?”

The boy looks confused now, eyebrows furrowing and lips turning into a deep frown. “What-”

Santi shakes the boy violently, only once, just enough to scare him. “A girl, was there a girl-”

“No! No, I didn’t see any girl!”

Santi feels his heart sink even deeper into his chest. He only stares for a few seconds longer, the full weight of what he’s just done to a young kid finally settling in just as his sorrow started to outweigh the anger once more. Pope looks down at his feet as he quietly mumbles something that sounded like an apology before letting go of the boy’s shirt, turning on his heel and briskly walking away, but not before Cameron stops him.

“Santiago, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” he mumbles, shrugging her off, desperately wanting to put some distance between him and everyone else, continuing to walk away, shoving his wife’s watch into his pocket as he does so.

Cameron calls out to him again, but just like every other time over the course of the past few days, he doesn’t listen.

As he makes his way back to the car, quickly walking past the squad and the other officers, Santi feels the anger flood into his body once again. He feels it settle between his ribs and make a home where so much love had once lived, where so much hope had been only moments before.

The constant back and forth is giving him whiplash.

Cameron still continues to follow him, still continues to call out his name but she really doesn’t think that he’ll stop, and she’s just about to give up when Santi whirls around with his gun still in his hand, though it isn’t aimed towards her. It isn’t aimed at anything, really.

The look in Santi’s eyes is even colder than before, if that’s even at all possible. Cameron feels fear prick at her skin, her hair standing on edge and her blood turning to ice. All she can do is take in his every movement and wait for a moment where she’s forced to intervene. Santi lifts his arms up, and for just a split second she thinks that he’s going to place the muzzle of the gun to his temple but he only lets the barrel rest against his skin, eyes falling shut.

Cameron still doesn’t like the fact that his finger is hovering near the trigger.

She cautiously approaches, making sure not to walk too fast, not wanting to scare him and cause him to panic. She reaches her own hand up and gently puts it overtop of Santi’s before slowly pulling the gun from his grasp.

His eyes snap open, and there’s absolutely no denying it. Not with eyes so dark and harsh and so devoid of emotion. Eyes that are almost dead.

Santiago is out for revenge. Out for blood.

He’s over this game of cat and mouse, he’s over chasing Nathan.

He’s over being toyed with.

Cameron is done watching her friend lose his mind.

And so, not caring about the anger from the entire squad that her decision will bring, she makes the only call she can think of. One she should have made at the very beginning.

One that will hopefully keep her from losing anyone else.

“I’m turning her case over. We’re done.”


	4. Chapter 4

_**OCTOBER 20TH - DAY FOUR** _

The precinct is busier than usual when Santi walks in the following morning. There are twice as many people, twice as many noises, twice as many reasons for Santi to be annoyed.

So many FBI agents. So many sounds. It’s complete sensory overload.

He stops after taking only a few steps off of the elevator, shaking his head, trying his hardest to push his irritation down. He’d been livid when Cameron announced that she was no longer letting the squad work on the case, and he hadn’t been the only one to let their anger show, but if Santi is being completely honest, he knew it had been coming.

It didn’t make it any easier, though. It felt like giving up in a way, even though that was the last thing he was willing to do.

Giving up would never be an option.

And fuck, the idea that it would one day be expected of him made his blood boil.

Santi takes a couple of deep breaths. He lets his eyes fall shut for just a moment, willing himself to stay calm. He shakes his head once, twice, and then starts to move towards an empty desk Cameron was letting him use. He can hear bits and pieces of the different conversations going on around him as he walks, but he can’t bring himself to actually pay attention to what’s being said.

He plops himself down into his chair, and before he has even a moment to make himself comfortable, he feels someone come up behind him and stop just a few feet away. He twists in his chair, spinning it around to face whoever has decided to sneak up on him and was surprised to notice that it wasn’t one, but two people — both agents.

“Need something?”

Santi doesn’t mean to sound so sarcastic, and while one of the agents chuckles a little bit, the other looks rather unimpressed with his attitude.

The second one — the one wearing a glare that quickly morphs into a arrogant smirk — shoves his hands into his pockets and tilts his head curiously at Santi.

“Maybe.”

Yeah, he fucking hates this guy.

Santi waits for the agent to continue, but several seconds pass in silence and he can’t stop himself from slowly raising an eyebrow in question.

“Okay…” Santi mumbles, dragging out the “y”, still waiting.

“I’m Agent Barnes, and this is Agent Graves.”

Santi glances towards the other agent, Graves, who smiles gently at him and gives him a quick nod. He definitely likes this one better.

Barnes rocks back and forth on his heels, still smirking to himself as he says her name under his breath. “We’d like to talk to you about her disappearance, if that’s alright with you.”

Santi can’t help but flinch at the cold way in which Barnes says her name. He can tell the sudden movement piqued Barnes interest, but he isn’t about to explain himself, doesn’t feel the need to.

“Sure, I’d love to talk about my _wife_ ,” Santi responds, eyes narrowed and lips upturned into something that resembles a grimace.

Barnes takes a few steps forward and comes to lean against Santi’s desk while Graves stays where he’d been standing. Pope folds his arms across his chest.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Barnes asks, looking down at Santi, his eyes staying trained on his face. Santi holds his gaze, taking it like some sort of challenge almost.

He absolutely loathes the bastard.

“On the sixteenth. She stopped by after she left the hospital and I walked her downstairs.”

“And at what time was that?”

“At about eight,” Santi answers, shrugging his shoulders gently. He hadn’t been looking at the clock, he’d been looking at her.

“And why didn’t you go home with her?”

“I had a lot of paperwork and she was tired. I needed to stay and there was no reason for her to.”

Barnes nods his head once, seeming to think over the information Santi just gave him in a way that makes him roll his eyes again.

“And what time would you say you made it home that night?”

“You know, I’m starting to feel like this is an interrogation, not an interview. Look, I’ve already told all of this to-”

“It’s just a simple question.”

Santi is frustrated, because all of the times, all of the facts, they’re all written down in her file, and he’s positive that the agents had already looked through the notes.

“About fifteen minutes after midnight.”

The passive expression Barnes is sporting quickly morphs into a smirk — one that honestly makes Santi want to deck him but also makes him so sick to his stomach at the same time.

“How long does it usually take for you to get home?”

“Twenty minutes, give or take.”

“That’s funny.”

Santi furrows his eyebrows, ready to slam his hand down onto the desk and demand Barnes just get to the fucking point, but before he can even blink the agent is continuing on with his words.

“You scanned out of your office at eleven that night. Only twenty minutes home...”

No. There’s no fucking way he’s about to-

“That leaves almost an hour that you have unaccounted for.”

Santi is completely and utterly floored at what Barnes is implying. He can only stare in shock for several seconds, jaw slack, tips of his ears turning bright red as heat flooded his body.

“You think that I killed my wife.”

It isn’t a question, but rather a statement — a statement that Santi never imagined he would find himself saying. He scoffs and shakes his head in disbelief.

“We don’t-” Graves starts to say, but his partner quickly cuts him off, silencing him with a simple wave of his hand that only pisses Santi off even further.

“I didn’t say that,” Barnes says, voice lacking any distinguishable emotion.

Santi scoffs again and quickly stands, feeling like it gave him some sort of advantage even though he was several inches shorter than the other man.

“I would _never_ do _anything_ to hurt my wife.”

“I’m not saying that _you_ did, but maybe,” Barnes starts, that damn smirk returning full force. “Maybe you and Nathan...”

“Okay, now you’ve gone too far,” Santi fumes, taking a step closer to Barnes, getting ready to wind his arm back so he can just-.

“Garcia,” Cameron calls out from where she’s standing, about ten feet away.

Santi hadn’t noticed her approach.

“Do you hear this bullshit? Did you hear-”

“Santiago,” she interrupts, effectively silencing him. She rarely calls him by his full name, and when she does, it was used as a form of comfort that Santi didn’t even know he needed until just now. He swallows the lump in his throat and glances towards his feet, trying to push his anger away, giving way to the shame at the fact that someone could ever think he’d hurt her.

“I wouldn’t hurt her. You know I wouldn’t do that.”

Cameron places her hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle yet firm squeeze like she’s done so many times recently. “I know.”

Of course she knows. Santi loves her more than any person had ever loved another. She is, and always will be, his entire world, his reason for getting out of bed in the morning and his reason for breathing, and Cameron can’t understand how someone could even insinuate that he might be involved in her kidnapping. Santi has a temper and that’s no secret to anyone, but he would never, _ever_ do something to hurt his wife, not even in the midst of the most heated argument would he imagine laying a single finger on her.

“I wouldn’t.”

Santi looks towards Cameron with such hopelessness and desperation trapped in his irises. He’s pleading with her, begging her to just believe him. He’s convinced that she agrees with Barnes.

“We all know.”

She squeezes again, and after her words have a few seconds to settle in, it seems to be enough, at least for the moment.

Santi’s shoulders seem to relax, just a fraction, and he sucks in a sharp breath. He nods his head once, solemnly so, and mumbles something that sounds like an excuse under his breath before retreating towards the locker rooms. No one follows, he doesn’t want anyone to. He just needs a few seconds to himself, a moment to push the nausea and the nerves and the worry away, even though he knows they would only return.

What Santi really needs is for this to all just be some sort of twisted, fucked up nightmare.

What Santi really needs is her.

**_OCTOBER 21ST — DAY FIVE_ **

Cameron makes Santi take the rest of the day off. He tries to argue with her, giving her the same reasons he had before, but nothing seems to convince her to let him stay. Ideally, she didn’t even want him to leave Jay’s apartment the next day either, and this time, he decides to just shut up and listen.

She wants him to sleep in until noon, watch as many movies as he possibly can, call his mother back, and actually eat something more than a few bites of whatever fast food or microwavable meal he’d been forced to buy.

Normally, Santi wouldn’t complain about doing any of those things, but today is different. He _needs_ something to focus on that will keep his mind quiet. He feels that he needs a distraction today more than any other day so far.

Because today is their two year wedding anniversary, and he is losing his mind by doing nothing.

It’s just after six p.m., and he’d woken up at five in the morning with no possible chance of getting back to sleep. The TV is turned off, and Santi has no desire to stand up and find the remote, and even if he does turn something on, he knows he won’t be able to properly focus on it. The bagel he’d made that morning is still sitting half eaten on the coffee table, and he didn’t even bother to make himself lunch.

Nothing Cameron wanted him to do came even close to being done, but Santi just can’t bring himself to do anything other than play a word game on his phone.

But he knows that he needs to call his mother back. He still hasn’t spoken to her, and she’s still calling him a few times each day, leaving message after message each time she’s met with the familiar “beep” of his voicemail. His father had started to do the same, even going as far as to send him a text message that read “If we didn’t know any better, we would think you’re missing too”. He deleted it right after opening it.

He just needs to get it over with

Santi sighs gently, closing out of his game and pulling up his contacts, scrolling until he found his mother’s name. He hits the call button, his stomach flipping as he waits.

She answers after the first ring, the worry in her voice sounding in Santi’s ears, the guilt of not answering any of her hundreds of calls suddenly weighing on his shoulders. He didn’t mean to cause her any sort of panic or grief, but what did he think ignoring her calls would do, especially in a situation like this?

“Hey Mamá,” he mumbles into the phone, voice hoarse from not having used it all day.

The relief in his mother’s voice after she hears him speak instantly makes that guilt grow into something that nearly swallows him whole, and his chest tightens as he listens to her cry in what he hoped was ease after finally hearing from him and not hurt because she _just now_ heard from him.

About five minutes pass before the conversation moves from Santi’s apparent inability to answer his phone to what he knows his mother has been calling about, and what has been the only thing on his mind for the last five days.

“Have you found anything?”

Santi feels a lump form in his throat, and he suddenly loses the ability to speak properly. This has been his reality for the better part of a week — talking about her and thinking about her every second of every day, which really isn’t any different from normal except for the fact that it now made his heart ache rather than fill him with joy.

He briefly tells his mother what happened in Princeton and Allentown, though he assumes she’d already heard. If you turned on the news for even two minutes, you would see her name and her picture flash across the screen, accompanied by Nathan’s, which never failed to make Santi’s rage blossom all over again.

“At least I know she’s alive,” Santi mutters after a brief pause where neither of them could find the right words to say, thinking back to the picture from the other day. “The amount of blood...Mamá, I was so fuckin’ scared that she was de-”

Santi’s voice cracks, and he can’t bring himself to finish his words. Saying that he’s afraid out loud is probably the most candid he’s been since the start of it all. He still hasn’t let himself cry, not really, but the one tear that fell down his cheek is all it took for the dam to break loose.

He pulls the phone away from his ear, but he doesn’t hang up. He simply lets it fall to the couch beside him as he brings his other hand up to his mouth, covering it as a broken sob passes his lips. His mother continues to listen on the other end, and her heart shatters for her son as well as his wife. She recounts an almost silent prayer just as Santi curses God’s name, and she can’t even bring herself to chastise him for using such language. She would’ve done the same if she were feeling even half of what Santi is.

All of Santi’s emotions continue to pour out of him in a violent downfall, like a storm that held no mercy, leaving a gaping hole in his chest that threatens to swallow him whole. He cries and he screams and he curses every higher power he can think of until his voice is strained with the effort. He bargains, he pleads. He prays, and then he curses again. His mother listens the entire time.

Several minutes pass like this, and once he’s sure that there are no more tears left for him to cry, after he feels like he would pass out if he shed even one more, he picks the phone back up slowly, though he stays completely silent. After several seconds, his mother says his name gently.

“I’m here,” he mumbles, no emotion left in his voice at all.

His mother seems to be thinking about her words, choosing them carefully as to not upset him any further. “Maybe you should think about coming home for a few days.”

Santi doesn’t respond, and after another moment spent in silence, she speaks again. “You know, I just don’t think you should be alone tonight…”

“You remembered,” he grumbles quietly, his voice hardly audible.

“Of course I did Santiago, but regardless of whether it’s your anniversary or not, maybe you just-”

“You know what Mamá,” he interrupts, cutting her off. “I, uh — I actually have plans tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Jay just got this new video game and we were gonna order a pizza or somethin’ for dinner,” he lies, though there was absolutely nothing in his tone to give him away. “I won’t be alone, promise.”

She seems to accept his answer, and doesn’t question him any further. She even sounds slightly enthusiastic about it, saying that it sounds like the kind of distraction Santi needs. He has to physically bite his tongue in order to keep himself from scoffing.

They say their goodbyes shortly after, and Santi throws his phone onto the couch cushion beside him, a deep sigh escaping his lips as he stares at the floor for what feels like an hour when it was probably only two minutes.

He and Jay don’t have any plans.

There’s no video game, no pizza. He feels slightly bad for lying to his mother, but a larger part of him just wants to save her the worry and trouble.

He quickly stands from the couch and switches out his sweatpants for a pair of jeans, but can’t find the effort to change out of his old PT sweatshirt, the one she always stole from him. He runs his fingers through his hair, not bothering to style it. He hasn’t shaved in a few days and he’s sporting a decent beard that he knew she would love.

He grabs his wallet and the spare key Jay’d given him, picked up his phone and sent him a text, also lying to him about his location and his plans, and set out the door.

Not ten seconds pass before Jay is texting him back, telling Santi they’d caught a case and he wouldn’t be home until later that night anyways.

Santi doesn’t think twice about it, and simply shoves his phone into his pocket before heading to the subway.

Their apartment is dark when Santi arrives a half hour later. He doesn’t bother to flip on the light in the entryway, and takes a moment to just stand there, his back against the wooden door, fingers tracing each groove.

It almost feels normal, like any other day. It feels like Santi had just gotten off work for the night and he’s taking a moment to decompress before he would make his way to the bedroom, where he would find her curled up under the sheets, her head on his pillow as she waited for him to come home to her.

But she always made sure that the lamp in the living room was on for him, and she had a habit of leaving the TV running until he got in. Neither are on, and only silence and darkness and solitude surround him.

Santi kicks his shoes off by the door before pushing away from it, taking a few tentative steps into the apartment. The room is slightly illuminated from the glittering lights of Manhattan, just enough for Santi to see around the outlines and shapes of things. It’s strange — everything looks the same, smells the same, but it feels so completely different. So completely foreign.

Lifeless.

A few things are out of place, like the blanket they kept on the back of the couch, now on the floor, and the couple of books they kept stacked on the coffee table are shifted a few inches to the left. Santi folds the blanket and puts it back in its place, moves the books back, and then walks slowly into the bedroom.

The smell of her perfume instantly hits him upon entering, and he has to grip the doorframe to keep himself from stumbling backwards. He sways on his feet, and closes his eyes for just a moment, taking a deep breath to, hopefully, steady himself as he reaches to his right to flip on the light. He keeps his eyes tightly shut for another moment before slowly opening them to finally take in his surroundings.

The bedroom is far worse than the main living area. The pillows from the bed are tossed to the floor, the sheets and comforter twisted together in a knot that Santi knew he would struggle to get out. There’s a small strand of yellow police tape on the floor that Santi doesn’t understand why it’s there, as they had only blocked the front door with it. Both of their bedside drawers are still pulled open, and he can see that the bathroom light is still on.

The bathroom.

Santi moves without intending to do so, and he feels his feet carry him towards their ensuite almost as if he’s on autopilot. He reaches the threshold in just a few short seconds, and at first, his brain doesn’t exactly process what he’s seeing, doesn’t fully make the connection and he only stands there, confused and bewildered.

No one’s been by to clean up yet, and blood still covers every surface Santi chooses to set his eyes on, only now, it’s dry, and more brown than it is red. The shower curtain had been taken away by the crime scene techs, as had the bathmat and the various hand towels that had been covered in crimson. Santi is almost positive that there isn’t as much glass on the floor as there had been before, which made sense — the techs would have taken some of it as well. But the floor and the walls and the counter...it looks like the kind of murder scene one would see in a grotesque horror film.

There’s even a handprint on the side of the tub that Santi knows belonged to himself. He’d used the tub to hold himself up, to keep himself from collapsing further after falling to his knees. He looks towards the cabinet under the sink to find a second handprint, right where he knew it would be. He had caught himself there, too.

He stands in the doorway for what must have been five minutes at least, staring at the blood and the glass and the wreckage, and he feels absolutely nothing. If anything, he feels completely and utterly numb to it all. Part of him can’t believe that what he’s looking at is real, and the other part won’t allow his brain to connect the dots.

He knows it’s her blood, in their cozy little apartment in Manhattan, and yet, he still feels like he’s standing in the middle of any old crime scene, where any old victim had been murdered by their enraged boyfriend. He’d seen it so many times before, back when he was a detective. It doesn’t seem any different now.

He tries to make sense of it in his head, tries to use sound logic and the knowledge of what he’d learned in his psychology classes throughout college to figure out why he’s feeling the way that he is, but nothing made sense. He just feels so entirely disconnected.

Another few minutes pass before Santi is finally able to turn his gaze away from the carnage. A small bout of nausea hits his stomach, but he chooses to ignore it. He’s learned that if he doesn’t pay attention to it, the less likely he is to lose what little his stomach holds at any given time. He wipes a stray tear away from his cheek, one he wouldn’t have noticed if the cool air from the vent hadn’t hit his face, and steps away from the bathroom.

His next destination is the closet. Nothing in there has been touched or moved to his knowledge, and for some reason, he feels comfort in that. He sighs gently and grabs an empty bag from the corner. This time, he’s more careful when choosing what clothes he would bring with him, because he has no plans on returning to the apartment anytime soon, not without a stack of moving boxes and a U-Haul at the very least. He decides right then and there that he’s breaking the lease early and finding somewhere else to move immediately. Just having the apartment in his name makes his skin crawl and he wants _out_ , wants nothing to do with it. And not only that, but as well as he knows his wife, he knows that if-

 _When_ they find her, she won’t want to be anywhere near the apartment.

But he also knows that there’s a part of her that will want to keep it just to prove a point, to show that she’s more than what had been done to her, and the thought of that makes him smile just a tiny bit.

“Stubborn ass,” he mumbles under his breath, a small, sad chuckle following just after.

He needs to get out of there.

Santiago gathers all of the clothes he figures he’ll need and turns to leave the closet when his eyes catch a familiar flash of gray, just like they had five nights before.

Nevada is still where Santi had dropped him, just lying on the floor, forgotten. She would’ve been so upset had she seen him just tossed aside like that, and that thought also causes Santi to grin to himself. She loves that damn wolf more than anything, would often swear that she loves him more than she loves Santi but he’s always thought it was so adorable how attached she was to the stuffed animal that he doesn’t even mind. She’d always treated Nevada as if he were a living, breathing thing.

He walks over to him, gently kneeling down to take him into his hands, his smile growing slightly as he feels the matted “fur” against his fingertips.

Santi slowly flips Nevada over, finding that her rings are still shoved onto the tail, just like they had been before. At first, he didn’t think that he would find them there, and he can’t exactly explain to himself why. He gently pulls them off, letting the cool metal settle in the palm of his hand.

All he can do is stare at them for several seconds, and it feels as if a rock settles and grows in the pit of his stomach the longer he he holds them. He closes his fist around the two rings, mumbling something that sounds like a promise — a promise that he’ll find her, and that he’ll bring her justice no matter the outcome — before shoving them into the pocket of his jeans.

He glances at his own wedding band for a moment, sitting on his ring finger, the silver glistening in the light, just like it had every single day since they said “I do”.

Two whole years to the day.

He’d planned to take her away for the weekend to celebrate their anniversary. It was supposed to be special, romantic, just the two of them alone in Boston without a care in the world. He’d had it planned for months now.

Does she know what day it is, wherever she is? Does she remember, or even realize how many days have passed?

Fuck that. Santi hates himself for even wondering, because it made him feel so completely selfish.

And he hates himself even more when he reaches to slide his wedding band off of his finger.

He failed her, he doesn’t deserve to wear it. He doesn’t deserve to call himself her husband.

When-

 _If_ they find her — which also makes Santi hate himself, because he’s beginning to pay attention to the numbers and the statistics and he’s starting to look at it as a recovery instead of a rescue — will she even want to still be married to him?

Will she still love him? Or will she hate him for letting this happen to her?

He slowly drops his hand, leaving the band on his ring finger. He’s sure he’ll never be able to take it off. Even if he never sees her again, he was sure the band will remain on his finger until he’s rotting in the ground (like he deserved, but he pushed the thought away, not wanting to wallow in his own self loathing).

He will always be her husband, unless she explicitly tells him that it’s no longer what she wants.

Santi shakes his head and tries to turn his brain off. He doesn’t want to think about that right now.

He shoves Nevada into his bag, zips it close, and makes his way out towards the foyer. He turns off every light in the apartment before leaving, locking the door behind him without looking back once. He can’t stand to be in there any longer, not liking where his mind is headed while standing in the middle of all that had once been theirs.

He arrives back at Jay’s shortly after, expecting him to still be gone on whatever case he’d been talking about, surprised when he finds the other detective standing in the middle of the living room. It looks as if he’d been pacing, his hands on his hips and a blank expression on his face that Santi can’t read.

“What’s up?” Santi asks, throwing his bag onto the floor by the door, deciding he would worry about finding a spot to put it away later.

Jay stays silent for close to a minute, seeming to be lost in thought before he finally speaks, voice low and eyes looking everywhere but at Santi. His tone sounds cold yet so full of emotion at the same time.

“Nathan emailed you a video tonight. Your account is being monitored and we intercepted it before you could see it.”

Santi’s blood runs cold, and he feels frozen in place. He wants to ask Jay what it is, but he can’t make himself speak, doesn’t remember how to use his voice. Instead, he just swallows the lump that had formed in his throat and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to continue.

It takes Jay several seconds to speak again, and when he finally does, Santi is sure that he would’ve preferred for him to just stay fucking quiet.

“Santi, Nathan shot her.”

Jay has tears in his eyes, and Santi still can’t move. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t fucking move move. Can’t speak, can’t think, can’t process the other man’s words. He can’t do anything.

“They’re working on tracing the email but we...the FBI said they have enough reason to believe that she’s-”

Jay can’t bring himself to finish his sentence, but Santi understands. He understands perfectly, though he wished he didn’t.

Nathan shot her, and they have enough reason to believe it was fatal.

But it doesn’t sit right with Santiago.

Something about it feels off, feels wrong. He was sure he would’ve felt something in his gut, like people say they do in books and movies when someone they care about is hurt or in trouble. But then again, he hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary when she had been taken. But if she had been killed, he was almost certain he would have felt _something_ — some instinct in the back of his mind, _anything_.

“She’s not,” Santi snaps, voice hard with emotion though it broke on the last word at the same time. “She’s not dead.”

“Santi,” Jay chastises sternly, exasperation evident in his voice.

“She’s not dead.”

“You didn’t see the video!” Jay yells, sliding his hand down his face as the pain and anger takes over his entire body. “You didn’t see it and you should be thankful that you didn’t have to.”

It’s obvious that what Jay had seen in the video traumatized him, and was enough to make him think for himself that she’s dead, but Santi just can’t accept it. He doesn’t know if it’s the denial talking, or if what he’s feeling is actually real, but after repeating himself for a third time, he feels the world come crashing down around him, he feels everything stop.

Santi’s knees give out, and he crumples, eyes rolling into the back of his head. Jay catches him before he can hit the floor.

Everything is black.

Santi’s heart, his world — it’s nothing but black.


	5. Chapter 5

**October 22nd - Day Six  
**

Santi isn’t the one to break the news to her parents. He still has no idea what to say to them, or if he even _can_ say anything to them without making himself sick, without breaking down completely. He isn’t used to feeling emotion like this, doesn’t know what he can handle and what will send him spiraling. The last of his mental stability isn’t something he is willing to risk losing right now.

He is, however, sitting in Cameron’s office when she makes the dreaded phone call, and he can hear her mother sob on the other line, and all he can do is watch, numbly so, as tears flood Cameron’s own eyes. Santi knows that she hasn’t had the time to process it for herself — her complete and utter focus has been on both him and this case, and on top of that she still has a department to run and her own family waiting for her at home.

She has to be tired.

Santi is so, so tired.

The night before is a blur. He remembers Jay telling him about the video, and then there’s nothing until this morning, when Jay shook him awake to tell him Cameron needed him down at the precinct. He still doesn’t know what for. There was no way she was expecting him to do any work for the case, that much he knew, and so he hadn’t bothered fixing his hair or changing out of his sweats.

He sits quietly on the small sofa in Cameron’s office with Jay sitting to his left, both staring at nothing in particular. Santi’s leg is bouncing again, his elbow perched on it and knuckles resting against his bottom lip. He still refuses to believe that she's gone. Santi is so, _so_ sure that she's still alive, but no one else seems to think so. He can’t even begin to put into words how enraged it makes him, how much it makes him want to scream and break anything he can get his hands on.

But then again, he hasn’t seen the video. He hasn’t seen what everyone else had seen, and though he really doesn’t want to, he knows that he needs to, if only for some sense of twisted, morbid closure. To put it all to rest.

And besides that, he can’t just take their word for it when there’s a gnawing, pulling feeling in his stomach telling him that they’re all wrong. It isn’t hope, and it sure as hell isn’t faith, because Santi doesn’t have any faith left to give, not in the squad, not in himself, not even in the boys — they’d offered their help, but he has nothing to give them, no leads to go off of and he knows that’s his fault because he’s not trying hard enough but it’s easier to just blame everyone else.

But that’s something he would deal with later, because all he can focus on is that damn feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s more than faith or hope, and he honestly doesn’t have a word for it — personal assurance, maybe? All he knows is that he’s so completely positive that she’s somewhere, still breathing, still living.

“Garcia,” Cameron gently begins, causing Santi’s eyes to immediately flicker over to her. She hesitates for a moment as she looks him over, taking in his hunched appearance that was so un-Santi like it doesn’t even look like him for a moment. “I’m so sorry, but I had to-”

“I wanna see the video,” Santi mumbles, not caring about what she had to say, his words slurring together as if he had been drowning himself in liquor the night before instead of lying passed out on the couch.

His words catch Cameron off guard, and her eyes widen, only slightly but enough for Santi to notice. She quickly averts her gaze to Jay as she searches for the right thing to say, but she doesn’t know how to answer him. When almost a full thirty seconds pass in silence, Jay decides that he has to be the one to break it, not able to stand it.

“Santi, I really don’t think that’s a good-”

“Look, I’m just gonna guess that you called me down here because the feds want to talk to me, right? And you know, they’re probably going to show it to me while they’re accusing me of murdering my wife _again_ -”

Both Jay and Cameron flinch, but Santi doesn’t stop talking.

“-and I’d say that’s a pretty shitty way to see it for the first time, don’t you?”

Now it’s Jay’s turn to be stunned into silence. He tries his best to put himself into Santi’s shoes, tries to figure out what he would personally want if he ever found himself in a similar situation.

But he has no idea what he would want in this instance, because he doesn’t know how to even begin imagining something so awful. He would never wish this on his worst enemy, which he knows is a terrible cliche, and it's hard enough as her friend, he just can’t imagine this from her lover’s standpoint.

But he knows that Santi is right, and that his first time seeing the video shouldn’t be when he’s being interrogated by Barnes and Graves. He sighs gently, and closes his eyes slowly before nodding his head.

“Fine. But you’re not watching it alone.”

Santi only nods in return, knowing better than to argue. He knows he won’t be able to watch it on his own anyways.

He stands, somewhat shakily, and inhales deeply, trying to calm the nerves that seem to have made a permanent home in his stomach over the last six days. Cameron offers her seat to him, and he sits without question, already feeling like his knees will give out at any second. Jay comes to stand behind him, and he takes one last look at Santi before clicking on the correct file, regretting it the moment he watches Santi suck in a sharp breath, a small gasp falling from his lips at the image that’s now displayed on the screen.

Just like the photo from a few days before, she’s tied up and gagged and she looks so utterly terrified it makes Santi’s head spin. She looks weaker than before too, and she’s only wearing her underwear. A wave of nausea hits and Santi swallows hard, and Cameron just wants to get it over with, so she hits play.

Immediately, Nathan grabs her jaw, pushing her cheeks together, forcing her lips to purse. It makes Santi’s skin burn, seeing his hands on her like that. His first thought is that he wants to break the fucker’s fingers, one by one.

The longer the camera focuses on her face, the harder and harder her glare becomes, and Santi feels that disgusting pride swell in his chest at the brutal fire in her eyes. That's his girl, so stubborn, never the one to go down without a fight.

She violently shakes her head once before attempting to thrash her arms, but she doesn't get very far with that, the ropes not allowing her to move hardly at all.

“Say hi to your husband, baby,” Nathan snickers, his voice dripping with venom that only adds to the fire moving through Santi’s veins. Maybe it was also due to the fact that he called her “baby”, but he knows he shouldn’t be focusing on that.

Nathan pulls the gag from her lips, and she gasps for air, gritting her teeth together but otherwise staying silent. When she fails to speak, Nathan laughs again.

“Is someone nervous?”

“Fuck you.”

“Again? We just finished not too long ago, sweetheart.”

She stays quiet again. Santi feels like he’s going to vomit, but he pushes the feeling down. He’s gotten really good at doing that in the last six days — at pushing all of his feelings down and away and locking them behind thick walls where he wouldn’t have to face them.

He can feel Cameron’s worried eyes on him, but he ignores them, refusing to pull his attention away from the screen in front of him.

“You wanna tell him about that, huh baby? You wanna tell your husband what I did to you? What you _let me_ do to you?”

This time, she flinches when Nathan says the word “husband”, almost subtle enough to where Santi wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t paying such close attention.

“I didn’t _let you_ do anything.”

“Mm, you did put up a pretty good fight sweetheart. You really know how to tighten my pants, don’t you?”

Santi doesn’t want to see anymore, doesn't want to hear anymore, but he can’t stop watching. He has to see it for himself, he has to. He needs to.

The video continues on for a few minutes, Nathan going into sick detail with every heinous act he performed or otherwise forced her into, because he knew Santi would see the video and he knew what it would do to him. Santi feels closer to faint with each passing second.

Around the four minute mark, he watches as Nathan’s hand moves into frame to stroke her cheek. Santi is just about to turn away, hating the way he touched her so tenderly when he watches her snap her head to the right and in one swift, solid motion, she has Nathan’s hand in her mouth and she’s biting down. Hard.

Nathan’s screams echo through the speakers, and Santi finds himself smirking at the sound. She has a good grip on him for several seconds before he manages to pull away, a bloody bite mark on the back of his hand. His screaming continues, and Santi actually lets out a chuckle that only increases Cameron’s concern.

But then suddenly, Santi isn’t laughing anymore, because Nathan brings the end of a gun down onto her head and the wound in her eyebrow splits open again. She groans, only briefly before she regains her composure, refusing to show how much pain she’s actually in. She’s grinning, and Nathan’s cursing.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Nathan says, a sadistic edge to his voice that puts Santi on complete alert, sets him on edge.

She chuckles, her grin quickly turning into a smirk that Santiago instantly recognizes. It was the same smirk she wore when she was being stubborn or when she was challenging something.

Or in this case, someone.

“Goddammit,” Santi mutters the second he catches it, because he knows her well enough to know that she was about to open her mouth when she should have just kept it shut.

“Bring it. Can’t get any worse than having you on top of me, can it?”

Not a moment later, a single shot rings through the speakers, causing Santi to jump in his chair, though he knows he should have been prepared for it.

He can see her eyes widen, but she doesn’t scream. She doesn't make a single noise whatsoever. She only stares at some faraway spot, her eyes watering and her jaw falling slack as she fades away into a state of shock while Nathan laughs maliciously. He grabs her cheeks again and holds them tightly while he forces her to look into the camera.

“You have anything you want to say to Santiago now? Huh?” he yells, and before she can answer, Cameron bends down and clicks out of the video.

Santi’s head jerks to the side, eyebrows furrowing as he looks up at the lieutenant. “What are you-”

“That’s enough. She didn’t say anything.”

“But-”

“Santi,” Jay murmurs, shaking his head slowly. “It only had a few seconds left. You didn’t need to see anymore of it.”

Santi sits there for several seconds, staring at the computer screen as he tries to decipher the emotions running through his brain. He can’t figure out how to feel or how to even make himself feel it — he’s just numb. He can admit that his chest feels a little bit emptier than it had before he walked into the office, and there’s a hint of anger, but nothing compared to what he’s been feeling all week.

If the movies and the books were right, he should be screaming, crying. Begging and pleading. He should be going through the same emotions he’d experienced on the phone with his mother, he should be inconsolable. Losing his mind and throwing things.

But he doesn’t have the urge to do any of that. At the very least he thinks he should have been having a similar reaction Jay’s from the night before, but there’s just nothing.

There is, however, two things that he’s absolutely certain of.

“She didn’t need to speak to say it,” Santi mumbles quietly. “She said that she’s sorry. That she loves me.”

Cameron raises an eyebrow, her head tilting to the side. “What do you-”

“I could see it in her eyes. You’re with a person long enough and words just kind of become redundant.”

Cameron hesitates as tears spring to her eyes. It’s hard enough losing a friend, but she almost believes it’s even harder watching a friend deal with losing his wife. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone love someone like you two loved each othe-”

“Don’t,” he snaps, effectively cutting her off. “Not past tense. Don’t do that shit to me.”

She sighs. “You know what I mean.”

“She’s still alive.”

“Santi-”

“She is.”

Cameron stays silent, again at a loss for words. Santi’s been forced to grieve for his wife once already, through the hope of finding her alive, and just when he was getting to a place where he was able to find just a little bit of light in the sorrow, he has to grieve her death. He has to go through the five stages of grief all over again, though he had never really finished the cycle the first time around, hadn’t allowed himself to.

Denial was the first. It was textbook—

“We didn’t see where it hit,” he says, interrupting her thought process.

She hesitates, considering his words for a moment. “No, we didn’t. But-”

“So he could have shot her in the fuckin’ foot for all we know. She could still-”

“If she had been shot in the foot, it would hurt more than it would have immediately thrown her into shock-”

“Not necessarily-”

“-and even so, the infection’s gonna kill her. Nathan can’t take her to a hospital.”

Santi only scoffs, leaning back in the chair, trying his hardest to keep his anger at bay. Screaming, arguing won’t get him anywhere.

Jay licks his lips, bracing himself against the desk, leaning forward so he can get a better look at Santiago. “You know the odds are definitely not in her favor.”

“But the odds aren’t completely zero, are they?”

“It’s…” Jay starts, pausing, sighing, knowing Cameron isn’t going to like what he has to say. “It’s possible. We’ve certainly seen people survive worse than a gunshot to the foot.”

“But like Garcia said,” Cameron adds, clearly agitated as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “We didn’t see where the bullet hit. It could have hit anywhere from the chest down.”

“So we should stop searching for my wife because of a possibility rather than take the probability and run with it?”

Cameron again doesn’t have anything to say. She doesn’t know _what_ to say. As a friend, she wants to say no, they shouldn’t stop looking. They should never stop looking.

But as a cop, she wants to say that there’s nothing else they can do, not until they have a substantial lead, something else to go off of. They can’t even trace the video and the email back to an IP address, for some reason that they still can’t quite figure out.

“Cameron,” Santi mumbles, voice gentle, calmer than it had been just seconds before. He blinks, and Cameron can’t tell if it’s to hold back his tears or if it’s to give himself a moment to breathe, to work up the courage to speak again.

“I’m not going to stop looking until there’s a body.”

Cameron’s breath hitches, and she forces herself to swallow the lump in her throat, to not show how his words hit her right in the gut and knocked the air from her lungs completely.

“I know,” she sighs finally, shaking her head slowly and averting her gaze. “But I still think you need to stay away from this. You’re going to drive yourself mad, Santiago. You’re loyal to a fault and it’s going to cost you your own health.”

“It’s not even about loyalty at this point.”

Cameron shifts her eyes back to Santi.

“It’s just about knowing.”

Santi hesitates, running a hand through his disheveled curls, down his face, the pressure in his chest growing the longer he sits there with his thoughts running wildly through his head.

“She’s still alive because I don’t _know_ that she’s dead.”


	6. Chapter 6

**ONE WEEK**

The FBI keeps working for another two days after getting their hands on the video, but they pull back the number of agents on her case after they hit a week on the job. They tell Santi the same thing that Jay and Cameron tried to — there’s just not enough reason for them to believe she’s still alive, no reason to have an entire team searching for what was now deemed a lost cause in their eyes.

Santiago is furious, of course he fucking is. But at the same time, he feels almost relieved. They reduced the manpower to one, just to keep the case technically active until it hit ninety days without a new lead, when it’d be closed for probably good, and Graves had been the one assigned. He wouldn’t have to deal with Barnes again, he’d have less people to deal with in general.

Less people watching his every move.

He’d noticed the unmarked surveillance cars parked outside of Jay’s place days ago, though he hadn’t given away that he’d seen them. He was sure it would make him seem paranoid, draw even more attention to him and they’d only throw more focus into trying to prove that he’d been the one to hurt his wife instead of directing that focus elsewhere.

Instead of putting it all on Nathan, like they should have been from the very beginning. Instead of investing it all in trying to _find_ her rather than trying to prove who took her, who orchestrated the whole thing. From the start, it felt like the agents had been set on just trying to bring someone down for it instead of actively trying to recover her.

But he’s relieved, because without the FBI hanging on his back he’d managed to snag a copy of the video for the boys to watch. They aren’t able to get very much from it, just that Nathan had to have her somewhere secluded, where a gunshot wouldn’t draw immediate attention, in what appeared to be a cabin without electricity or heat — there was a lantern on the nightstand, and you could see her breath when she exhaled, giving away that they were still somewhere up north. Southern states were still hovering in the fifties and even the sixties.

She could still be in New York for all they knew, somewhere upstate.

But that was all they had. They weren’t able to trace the video, they weren’t caught on any traffic cams. There’s virtually nothing for them to work with.

They just have to wait for something more, something substantial.

Santi hates waiting.

**TWO WEEKS**

Her supervisor finally calls but Santi doesn’t answer. He already knows what they’re going to say, anyways, and he’d rather listen to a voicemail than try to hold a conversation without letting his temper simmer over.

The hospital can’t keep her active any longer, and her last check would be deposited to her bank account that Friday. Santi knows that it actually hits, because he’d been given access to all of her accounts and cards after the FBI released them. Graves promised that they were still being monitored for any suspicious activity, even though her wallet was at home with said cards still inside — only her ID had been taken out of it. Nathan had even left the cash.

Cameron suggests canceling her phone and any other non essential account, but he can’t bring himself to even consider it. She’d need a phone when she got back, what was the point in canceling when they would just have to set it up again?

When he tells Cameron this, all she can do is stare at him, not sure if it was healthy for him to still be in such intense and unwavering denial.

She thinks that there’s a difference between having hope and losing your mind.

But then she reminds herself that it’s only been two weeks. Not two months, not two years. Santi would get better.

Santi would come to terms with it all and learn to move on.

They wouldn’t lose him too.

**THREE WEEKS**

It doesn’t take very long to find a new apartment, one with two bedrooms because he figures she might want some space to herself when she gets back. It’s out in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, the new burrough allowing him to work with his new budget just a little more. There’s no fire escape, and he’s not entirely sure how she’ll react to that — she’d always loved sitting outside on cooler days, always enjoyed having plants and fairy lights and what she considered to be a small little sanctuary.

But he was definitely happy about it. Very happy.

And while it doesn’t have a fire escape, it does have exposed brick, roof access, and a kitchen island unlike the last place. He knows she’ll love it. He can already picture them sitting next to each other in the mornings, sharing pancakes and drinking coffee, her sugary creamer dancing with his half and half on their tongues.

Yeah, he thinks she’ll really love it.

And he’s ready to get off Jay’s couch.

Santiago doesn’t have to worry about packing all of their belongings — he pays the moving company to do it for him. He doesn’t have the patience, the time, the effort. Zero desire to step foot in that apartment ever again.

He’s a little overwhelmed when he gets to the new place and sees just how much shit they have though, so he gets Jay and Frankie to help him unpack, and it’s fine. It’s fine, and they try not to seem overly concerned when Santi has to leave the room after finding their wedding album, or the way his breath hitches when he opens a box filled with her clothes and the scent of her perfume hits him like a smack across his cheek. They ignore the tears that spring to his eyes when he closes it again, deciding to hang them up another day.

Jay even stays with him that first night, using the excuse that he’s too tired to make it back to his place. They stay up together, playing video games, drinking beer and eating takeout and for a moment it almost feels normal. It almost feels like Santi’s simply waiting for her to come home from work, or maybe she’s already there and just in the other room sleeping after her shift.

But he’s quickly reminded that she’s not when he goes to lay down and the sheets are cold.

And for the first time, Jay hears him cry.

**FOUR WEEKS**

Santi knows he can’t keep eating cheap hamburgers every single night. He knows he needs to go grocery shopping, but he’s been putting it off, putting it off, putting it off but then Cameron practically forces him to go, and he finds himself pushing a cart through Whole Foods, not really knowing what things to buy. She usually did all of the grocery shopping, all of the meal planning and prepping. He always helped, but she always told him what to do.

And not only does he not know what kind of shit to buy, but Santi finds himself reaching for food items that he knows she would enjoy, things she always bought for herself. Her preferred brand of iced coffee, her coconut milk, those chips he would always steal from her and then she would complain because he ate the entire bag, and he’d kiss her mid sentence and rub her hips to make up for it.

He knows it’s stupid, but he thinks he should buy it anyways, just for when she gets back. She’d appreciate having all of her favorites in the house, appreciate the normalcy and the familiarity and-

“Stop being a fuckin’ idiot,” he mumbles under his breath, and it’s all he can do not to roll his eyes when the man standing next to him stares.

Santi forces himself to put it all back on the shelves once he realizes what he’s doing, but he still buys the chips.

And maybe he buys that stupid too sweet creamer just so he can add a splash to his coffee in the mornings, hoping the familiar taste will be enough to drag him out of bed because he needs something to persuade him to do so. He doesn’t know how much longer he can keep doing this.

**SIX WEEKS**

He finally goes back to work, and it’s awkward. No one wants to make direct eye contact with him, or even really speak to him. They’re all walking on eggshells around him, like he’ll break at the drop of a hat and he’s not sure if he’s pissed or if he’s thankful. Sometimes he feels like he needs that distance but sometimes he just wants to pretend that everything is normal.

Santiago spent the week leading up to his return contemplating quitting and really the only reason he didn’t was because his pension from the army just wouldn’t cover it, wasn’t enough to pay all of the bills.

He wants to be sitting at the precinct instead, with Cameron and Jay and Parker so he’d be the first to know if they catch a lead. He wants to be laying in his bed, under the blankets, letting himself feel and wallow and just be by himself.

What he really wants is to be with her again.

God, he just wants her.

But his desk, his office, his co-workers — he’d take it. It was something close to routine, something he’d been struggling to find.

He’d been struggling because he didn’t want a new routine. Didn’t want a new normal.

He just wants her.

He just wants to wake up next to her in their bed, not his bed, tangled in sheets that smell like her shampoo and not his aftershave and tequila. He wants to come home to the sound of her humming in the kitchen, wants to spend his Friday nights twirling her around the living room to cheesy old love songs. He wants to stop feeling guilty every time he gets hard, wants to stop breaking down after he allows himself that release, wants to stop the disgust that comes when he thinks about her like that. He shouldn’t be thinking about her like that, not now.

It wasn’t right.

**TWO MONTHS**

Her parents want to hold a service a week before Christmas. They don’t say the word funeral, because everyone is a little uncomfortable with the fact that there’s no body to bury. They don’t even want to bury an empty casket but they still want a headstone and they still want everyone to get dressed in their best suits and dresses to cry and grieve over nothing.

When he says this to Jay, Jay wants to scream at him for a moment, but he knows that Santi isn’t calling _her_ nothing. He’d never say anything like that. No, he knows that it’s just Santi saying that he doesn’t want to mourn when there’s still a chance.

It was like he said that day in Cameron’s office — he wouldn’t let go until there was a body, until he was one hundred percent certain that she was dead, until there was something _worth_ losing all of his hope and faith over.

And even then, he might not stop.

So Santi doesn’t go, and Jay doesn’t push him to.

**FOUR MONTHS**

Santi doesn’t flinch at the mention of her name anymore but she’s still his first thought when he wakes up and the last before he falls asleep.

When he _does_ sleep. The nightmares are back.

**SIX MONTHS**

He gets into a fight with the boys, one that leaves Frankie with a split lip and Santi with bloody knuckles.

He’s still pushing, still snapping at them to get off their asses and find something, anything, but there’s nothing to find. There hadn’t been a damn thing since the video.

For a while, everyone thought Santi was getting better, healing. Finally coming to terms with it all but overnight it’s like a switch was flipped and he’s thrown back into week one.

None of the boys have ever seen him so desperate, so out of control but he’s screaming at the top of his lungs that no one’s doing enough, no one’s trying. No one cares but him and they all know that he’s only saying these things because he downed half a bottle of whiskey earlier that night. This isn’t Santi.

And they’re all frustrated. Frustrated and afraid, seeing their friend like this, but Frankie’s fear manifests into anger and when he tells Santi that it’s time to give it up, that she’s dead and there’s nothing else anyone can do, he loses it. Santi fucking loses it.

Frankie knows he deserves that hit, knows he earned it and worse and he’s ready to take it but then Will manages to pull Santi off of him with little resistance.

And Frankie gives him a minute, just a minute to calm down before he’s sinking onto the ground next to him, to hold him while he cries.

Santi’s been doing a lot of that lately.

He fucking needs her.

**SEVEN MONTHS**

He wouldn’t remember the smell of her perfume if he didn’t keep the bottle on his nightstand, wouldn’t remember the sound of her voice if he didn’t listen to her voicemail every single night before bed.

**EIGHT MONTHS**

Santi meets her in a bar — a girl with her color hair, eyes that are just a little off and skin that’s not quite as soft, but she’ll do, he thinks. She’ll do.

He doesn’t kiss her, makes sure she knows he won’t kiss her before they even make it to the cab. And when he gets her upstairs and into his apartment, he asks her to wait in the living room for a minute or two so he can douse his entire bed in that familiar perfume.

And when he comes, his face is buried into the sheets and not her hair.

It’ll do.

**NINE MONTHS**

Graves calls Santi one Thursday afternoon, and he almost doesn’t answer. But he figures it’s gotta be something important, especially since her case has been inactive for months now. He picks up.

“We found her ID.”

Santi has to sit down, and he falls onto the couch so hard it hits the wall behind him, the thud so loud Graves has to ask him if he’s alright.

“You found her ID?”

“ _Just_ her ID.”

He says it this way because he wants Santi to know that that was it. There was no video, no eye witnesses, nothing else. Just her license, stuck under the windshield wiper on a truck in Manhattan. Nothing else.

But it had to be deliberate, planted there for a reason.

And Graves knows that that will be Santi’s first thought, and that’s why he doesn’t tell him that the truck was Jay’s.

Jay doesn’t tell him either.

It’s just too much false hope, another scrap in this game of cat and mouse. Not enough to go off of.

**TEN MONTHS**

This girl’s eyes are almost perfect.

**ELEVEN MONTHS**

Santi doesn’t know what he’s going to do when it hits a year.

**DAY ONE**

It doesn’t hit a year.


	7. Chapter 7

**OCTOBER THIRD — ZERO**

Santiago hates October. He hates October so fucking much, he can’t even put it into words when he’s asked to explain himself after he casually mentions it to one of his co-worker’s, someone who wasn’t around a year before when his entire life went to shit. He hates talking about it, hates thinking about it, doesn’t know how he could even begin to explain it. 

So he doesn’t answer. He only shrugs, and rolls his eyes when he looks up and catches the horrified expression on his captain’s face.

Santi’s past the breaking down and the sobbing. He’s past the uncontrollable emotions and the erratic behavior. He doesn’t need people to continue to be so careful around him, he just needs things to finally get back to normal-

He stops before he can continue on with that thought, with that wish, because nothing will ever be normal again. Not like it was, at least. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he has a new normal, a new routine.

He wakes up in his new apartment each morning, fixes the covers and pillows on just one side, makes breakfast for himself and only himself. He showers by himself, pays for one coffee from his new favorite coffee shop. He does the grocery shopping, does the laundry, remembers when the bills are due all by himself, no longer looks to the fridge for a sticky-note reminder. Some nights he goes to the bar and finds a warm body to bring home, one that doesn’t care about the wedding band on his finger or the women’s perfume coating his sheets or that goddamn stuffed wolf that now occupies what was once her side. Some nights he sits on his kitchen floor and drinks himself into oblivion.

That’s his normal. That’s his routine.

He fucking hates it and he fucking hates October, but it’s his life now, and he’s just going to have to get used to it.

And so he ignores the look on his captain’s face, ignores his co-worker’s persistence, and shuts his computer down the second it hits 5 o’clock — another unfamiliar part of his new routine. He’s always off work right on time, hasn’t had a second of overtime since-

He sighs, and pushes away from his desk, shrugging his coat on. He feels like it’s one of those nights where a bottle of whiskey is all the comfort and company he needs. His thoughts, those emotions are getting too close again. He can’t let them get too close.

Santi can’t remember how much is left in the bottle of Maker’s Mark he has at home. He can’t even remember if there’s another bottle tucked away behind that one, so he stops by the liquor store on his way back to his place and grabs three bottles off the shelf. The guy behind the counter recognizes him now, and the judgment in his eyes is always clear, but Santi always ignores it. He pays, and at that point he’s only a few blocks from his apartment, so he walks.

He walks and he doesn’t think about a damn thing. He’s gotten good at that, turning his thoughts off on command.

And he’s so lost in his nothingness he almost doesn’t notice when he gets home and his front door’s unlocked, deadbolt and all.

He’s never left the door unlocked. Not even before.

Santi slowly, silently sets his things down on the ground, and his hand easily finds the gun on his hip. He pulls it from its holster, flicks the safety off, but keeps it aimed towards the floor even though his first instinct is to shoot first, ask questions later. There’s only one person he thinks it could be.

But still, he keeps it pointing downwards, and pushes the door open with the toe of his boot.

The light in the hallway is on, and so is the one in the living room. He always makes sure all of the lights are off when he leaves in the morning, and Santi frowns. If Nathan broke into his place, he’s sure as hell not being subtle about it.

But once he makes it down the hall and into the main living space, he sees Jay standing against the island. Not Nathan. Just Jay.

He should’ve suspected the man with the key first.

“Jesus Christ, man,” he sighs, running a hand through his graying curls. Jay eyes the gun in his hand, like he isn’t surprised to see it pulled on him, and Santi sighs a second time before turning the safety back on and setting the weapon on the endtable by the couch. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Santi heads back to the door to grab his things, and he hears Jay’s shoes hit the hardwood floor as he moves into the living room and sits on the couch. Santi’s eyebrows furrow when he doesn’t say anything, and after he has his whiskey stored away for later, he finally looks at him. Really looks at him.

Jay’s face is pale, eyes a little puffy. He’d been crying, that was completely obvious, and as Santi moves closer, he can tell his hands are shaking.

“Hey, what is it?” Santi asks, sitting on the coffee table, hands resting on his knees as he leans forward.

The other man starts to bounce his leg, his eyes looking everywhere but at Santi. It takes him almost a full minute to finally speak, and when he does, his voice wavers.

“They found her,” he mumbles, a small, humorless laugh following his words. “We found her.”

Santi can tell from Jay’s tone that it isn’t good.

“We got a call from State Patrol earlier, about a girl they found in a ditch on the way out to Montauk. They needed someone to ID her so I went and-”

Santi feels that all too familiar bile rise in his throat, and he’s up before Jay can finish his sentence, running towards the kitchen so he can heave into the sink.

His head’s spinning. His arms and legs feel numb and the panic comes back full force. The pain, the grief, all of it hits him so violently in the chest he forgets how to breathe. It feels like the air had been forcefully knocked from his lungs and he feels like he’s getting ready to black out and-

And Jay knows he’s fucked up.

He quickly moves to Santi’s side and puts his hand on his shoulder, shaking his head almost frantically. “No, no. Santi, listen, hey, we need to get going.”

Santi just looks at him while his chest heaves, while sweat starts to drip down his forehead. “What?”

“I came over to take you to the hospital. Come on, you need to see her.”

Santi looks positively horrified, and it’s been months since Jay has seen him look so close to breaking down.

“You want me to identify her body _now_? Fuck, Jay, I thought you-”

“No.” Jay cuts him off, shaking his head again, mentally kicking himself for not starting the conversation this way, but to be honest, he still can’t wrap his head around it. He’s still in shock. “Santi, she’s alive.”

“Stop fucking with me man-”

“I’m not!” Jay promises, hands reaching out to grip Santi’s shoulders. He shakes once, twice, then laughs again, but this time, it’s in relief. “She’s alive. She’s alive and we need to get you to the hospital _now_ -”

Santiago _does_ black out.

* * *

He doesn’t remember much about the next hour. He doesn’t remember Jay peeling him off the floor when he finally came too, doesn’t remember being dragged downstairs to Jay’s truck, doesn’t remember the drive to the hospital out on Long Island, though he does briefly remember wishing they’d been able to get her back to the city. He trusts the doctors and the nurses at her hospital, wants them to be the ones taking care of her. He wants her closer to home, closer to something, somewhere familiar. 

But even so, Santi doesn’t fully snap back to reality until he’s standing in front of Graves, and the numbness subduing his body and mind quickly fades into anger.

He’s so fucking angry. All he sees is red.

“You didn’t call me first? You were supposed to call _me_ first, not _anyone_ else.”

Graves holds his hands up, almost as if he’s afraid Santi’s going to rush him, and honestly? He thought about it.

“We wanted to make sure it was really her before we-”

“You had enough time to send Jay to my place. You could’ve called me at work, fuck, you could’ve just shown up-”

“We didn’t think that was a good idea-”

“Will you two _shut up_.” Cameron’s suddenly standing between the two, a hand on each of their chests, gently pushing them back from each other. “This is the last thing either of you should be doing right now.”

Santi knows she’s right, it’s the _last_ thing he wants to be doing.

He just wants to see her, to touch her, to make sure she’s really there and breathing. His anger evaporates as quickly as it came, and he can’t pick an emotion to describe the feeling that replaces it.

“Can I see her?” he asks Cameron, coughing gently to hide the way his voice cracks, though she catches it. So does Graves, so does Jay.

Jay turns Santi to face him when neither Cameron nor Graves say anything, and he sighs, taking a moment to think about his words carefully before he speaks. “Santi...listen, she’s been through hell-”

“You think I don’t know that?” he scoffs, shaking his head. “You think I haven’t thought about that every damn day for the last fuckin’ year?”

Jay flinches, but he’s quick to relax. He reminds himself that everyone’s emotions are running high, he shouldn't take it personally. “I just, I mean...fuck, it’s a lot, okay?”

He looks almost scared, and Santi suddenly understands why he’d acted so scattered back at the apartment. 

Santi nods, but doesn’t say anything, mostly because he doesn’t know _what_ to say. He just wants to see her. They all know that.

So Jay leads him down the sterile white halls, and Santi shoves his hands into his pockets. His stomach twists the deeper into the building they get, but he pushes down his fear of hospitals and doctors and instead focuses on the fact that she’s still alive.

She’s alive. They found her. She’s _alive_.

She’s alive.

Though she doesn’t really look it.

Santi stops the second his eyes fall on her, motionless in her hospital bed, hooked up to different wires and tubes. And just like earlier, it feels like the air has completely escaped his lungs. He thinks he might be sick again.

It’s her. It’s definitely her, but she looks so, so frail — so unlike herself, and though Santi expected it, he’s not prepared for it.

He blacks out again, and just like always, Jay catches him before he hits the ground.


	8. Chapter 8

Santi’s been awake for a few hours now. They’d moved from the ER to an actual room at some point, but just like earlier, he doesn’t really remember how he got there. All he knows is that now he’s sitting in a chair by her bedside, watching his leg bounce in time with a ticking clock from somewhere in the room, and he still hasn’t allowed himself to fully believe that he’s actually where he appears to be.

He keeps telling himself that it’s just a sick, twisted trick, that his mind is simply playing a game with his heart. He drank or he smoked too much before bed, and he’s stuck in some fucked up fever dream. It’s not real, she’s not real. He’ll look again and she’ll be gone.

But every time he lifts his head, every time he pinches his skin until he’s bruised, she’s still there. She’s there, and her chest is rising and falling with each breath, and the monitor above her bed is spiking with her heartbeat. The IV connected to her hand is dripping with a cocktail of vitamins and medications, fluids.

She’s there. She’s alive.

She’s not okay.

But she’s alive.

The door behind him opens with a soft click, and he doesn’t turn around to see who it is. Now he’s afraid that if he looks away, she’ll disappear again.

Jay takes a seat on the opposite side of her bed, and Santi briefly, so briefly lets his eyes flutter up to the other man’s face, only because he could still see her out of the corner of his eye, but he still doesn’t risk taking his attention off of her for long.

Several minutes pass in silence, and Santi’s not sure if he should break it or if Jay was just wanting to be close to her too. It’s weird, how the room feels so empty yet so full at the same time. So loud yet so quiet, it’s making his anxiety skyrocket. Santi sighs without really realizing it and runs a hand through his already messed up hair.

“What did the doctor say earlier?” he finally asks once it becomes too much. He adjusts in his seat and lets his head rest in the palm of his hand, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her hand. He hadn’t touched her yet, he’s almost scared to. Definitely scared to. “I was-”

“Kind of out of it, I know,” Jay mumbles, nodding his head. Santi watches out of the corner of his eye as Jay refuses to look away from her as well, and somehow that manages to quiet his nerves just a little bit. Two people watching over her is better than one.

But then Jay leans forward and puts his hand on her leg through the blankets, and that small bit of comfort is gone again. He’s not jealous, he just wants to touch her. Why can’t he fucking touch her?

“She’s dehydrated, malnourished.” But you can tell that just from looking at her. “Her blood tests were all over the fuckin’ place. She-”

Santiago nods along and listens with rapt attention, holding onto and memorizing all of the information that’s being thrown his way. He listens, and there’s two things that really stick out to him through the rest.

Her white blood cell count is so extremely elevated and her blood test results show a number of vitamin deficiencies that could take months to bring back into normal or even acceptable ranges. He expects that though, he’s not shocked by it.

But it sticks out to him because there’s fluid in her lungs — pneumonia, and for a moment, he can’t believe that she caught it in early October, but then he remembers he has the undernutrition to blame for that.

And then he remembers all of the complications that come with malnutrition, and how her body is going to struggle to fight off that sickness. It sticks out to him because he’s seen undernourished children die from a common cold because their little bodies just couldn’t handle it.

It sticks out to him because he knows what pneumonia could mean for someone in her state, and he can’t bear the thought of losing her, actually really losing her when she’s right there in front of him again.

But still, he listens, and Jay can tell that Santi needs some time alone again to process it all. He squeezes her leg once, then stands up from his chair and walks out of the room with the promise of bringing a fresh coffee and a change of clothes for Santiago.

Santi doesn’t move for some time, he’s not sure that he even blinks. He just sits there and stares at where Jay’s hand had been while his leg starts to bounce again.

He shakes his head, knowing he needs to pull himself together. The last year had been hell, if he could handle that he can sure as fuck handle this.

She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay she’ll be okay she’ll be okay.

He finally stands and moves to the edge of the bed, letting his hands rest on the rail. He grips it tightly, and he’s almost sure he could snap it if he really wanted to.

He still can’t reach out and touch her. All he has to do is move his hand a few inches forward and he could be touching her but he just fucking can’t, he can’t do it and he wants to scream at himself for being so weak.

But when he opens his mouth, it’s not a scream that comes out, it’s a whisper.

It’s hardly audible and he doesn’t even realize what he’s said at first, but he lets her name slip past his lips for the first time in so, so long it feels almost foreign.

But God, it’s just as fucking sweet as he remembers. So sweet it feels like honey dripping off his tongue and his anger at himself immediately evaporates and is replaced by something he can’t even think of a word for. Something like guilt, maybe?

He still can’t reach out and touch her.

“Wake up.”

He needs her to open her eyes. That would be enough.

“Just please hold on.”

**_OCTOBER FOURTH — DAY ONE_ **

He hates it when they have to take her away the next morning for an MRI, just to rule out any sort of head trauma. He hates having her out of his sight, he hates thinking about the possibility of her opening her eyes and he’s not standing right there. Santi can only imagine how scared and confused she’ll be, and he wants to be there for her. He just wants to keep her safe, do what he couldn’t do before. He just wants her.

But he knows he’s not allowed to go with her and he doesn’t even try to argue it, he wants to stay on the doctor’s good side.

He decides to use that time to take the longest shower of his life, and he just sits there on cold tiles with the water pounding down on him for what has to be an hour. It’s long enough that his knees fucking hurt when he tries to stand again, and he has to brace himself on the wall for several minutes before he even tries to take another step. He changes, uses his fingers to comb through his tangled hair — he’d forgotten how dry hospital shampoo always makes it, and by the time he’s finished she’s still not back. The silence is closing in on him again.

So he calls the boys, somehow managing to get them all into a conference call to let them know that she’s okay, they found her.

Will and Benny are both stunned into silence, but the relief is evident when they finally start to ask questions, and Santi’s sure he hears Frankie crying softly, though he otherwise stays silent.

“And Nathan?” Will asks during a small stretch of silence.

Santi’s hair stands on end at the mention of his name, and the blood coursing through his veins feels hot like venom, like fire. He hadn’t thought about Nathan, not yet. His entire focus had been on his wife, of course it had been.

But now, his mind was racing with different thoughts and possibilities. Different things he wanted to do to him. How he wanted to make him suffer.

“Yeah, did they catch him?” Frankie sniffles, pulling Santi away from his thoughts.

“No.” His voice is clipped, and he can picture the boys holding their breath, can see in his mind how they would share nervous glances between each other, ‘cause they all know what that tone means.

“We-”

“We don’t need to be talking about this right now.”

It’s Will again, always the voice of reason, and Santi knows that he’s right. They don’t need to be talking about it over the phone.

“You guys wanna grab dinner or something sometime this we-”

They all interrupt him this time, but it’s Frankie who breaks through the noise and takes over.

“Dude, no. Not this week, fuck, maybe not even next month. Just...focus on her right now, okay?”

“But-”

“Santiago, she needs you. Just be there for her.”

Again, Santi doesn’t argue, because he knows the boys are right.

He needs to get with Graves, figure out what’s new, what they know though he assumes it’s not much.

He can’t help but think that’s a good thing.

He wants to get to Nathan before anyone else even has the chance.

* * *

She hears him. She always hears him. It’s always his voice in the back of her head, his voice in her dreams. It’s always him him him him him.

Santi.

She hears him, and the light in the room is so bright through her eyelids she’s sure she’s died and moved onto whatever, wherever existed beyond life and Earth. She can’t remember the last time she woke up to sunlight. Sunlight, Santiago, a warm blanket covering her shivering body.

She’s dead.

That’s okay.

But she doesn’t want to open her eyes. Even in the afterlife, she’s afraid that if she opens her eyes, he’ll disappear. She’s afraid she’ll open them and see Nathan, not Santi.

She just wants Santi. Only ever Santi.

And so when she hears a second voice, a man’s voice, one that she doesn’t recognize, she panics. She starts crying. She doesn’t want Santi’s voice to go away, she needs him. She fucking needs him.

She opens her eyes and he’s right there. He’s right there and that’s when she knows for certain she’s dead.

He looks almost the same. There’s a little more gray in his hair and he’s sporting a short beard instead of his usual stubble. His hands are shoved into the front pocket of his hoodie — it’s one that she recognizes, one that she’d wished for on cold nights when Nathan would chase her through the snow for fun, dangling freedom right in front of her face but always managing to track her down.

She wants to call out to him, she wants him closer. She wants to yell at the other man to leave the two of them alone but her voice feels stuck in her throat. She just cries harder, but she knows she doesn’t make a sound. Nathan never liked it when she cried.

A third body enters the room and she immediately slams her eyes shut, but it’s Jay. Just Jay.

And he saw her before she had time to look away.

“Her eyes were just open.”

Santi doesn’t even glance back towards him. His full attention is immediately on her, and he leaves Graves standing there to move back to her bedside, though this time he doesn’t even reach out to grip the rail like he had the night before.

He still can’t touch her.

But he does gently call out her name again, hoping and praying that Jay’s mind hadn’t been playing tricks. For a second, he thinks that must’ve been it. She’s not responding. But then he says her name again and he watches as her fingers twitch and grip the blanket between them.

Graves is out of the room to grab a nurse before Santi can even ask him to, and she opens her eyes again at the sound of retreating footsteps, beyond terrified thinking they belonged to Santi.

But he’s still there. He’s still right there, and Jay is there, and she’s in an actual bed and not on the floor.

Sunlight, Santi, blankets. Voices drifting from down the hallway, Jay, a bed.

She’s dead and that’s okay. It’s perfect. It’s all she’s been wanting for...she doesn’t even know how long she’d been with Nathan.

He says her name again, and she thinks it’s the sweetest sound she’s ever heard. So sweet it’s like honey dripping off his tongue.

It’s the little push she needs to finally find her voice, and it’s weak. It’s so weak, but he can still hear it, still understand her words and they make Santi’s chest ache.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t hold on.”

She doesn’t give Santi a second to even register her words, doesn’t give him a second to respond or ask if she’d heard him begging the night before.

“Please don’t leave, you always leave.”

It breaks Santi’s heart.

He needs to reach out and touch her, he needs to let her know that he’s still right here, that she’s here. She’s okay and he’s never going to let another bad thing ever happen to her ever again.

He still can’t touch her.

All he can do is say her name again, but this time, it’s broken. He feels broken.

He hates that he feels this way when in comparison, this last year has been easy on him.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.”


End file.
